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PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society 



ANNUAL MEETINGS 



1854, 1855, & 1856; 



WITH TiiE 



TREASURER'S REPORTS AND (JENERAL AGENfS ANNUAL STATEMENTS. 



BOSTON: 

OFFICE OF MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
No . 21 CORNHILL. 

1856. 



Pussitcljiisctts l^nti-SlHijcrir 3mti 



PROCEEDINGS 



Massacliusetts Anti-Slaycry Society 



ANNUAL MEETINGS 



1854, 1855, & 1856- 



TREASURER'S REPORTS AND GENERAL AGENT'S ANNUAL STATEMENTS. 



BOSTON: 

OFFICE OF MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

No . 21 CORNHILL. 
1856. 



Note. — This pamphlet is issued as a continuation of the History of 
the Society. Its series of Annual Reports, which were brought down to 
January, 1853, are now continued by the American Anti-Slavery Society. 



boston: 

printed bt prentiss and bawtee, 

No. 19 Water Street. 



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OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. 



PRESIDENT. 

FRANCIS JACKSON, Boston. 

VICE PRESIDENTS. 

Andkew Robeson, New Bedford. Cyrus Peirce, Newton. 

Edmund Quincy, Dedham. John T. Hilton, Brighton. 

Adin Ballou, Milford. Thomas T. Stone, Bolton. 

John M. Fisk, West Brookfield. Bourne Spooneh, Plymouth. 

Joshua T. Everett, Prmceton. William Ashby, Newburyport. 

Effingham L. Capron, Worcester. John Bailey, Lynn. 

Jefferson Church, Springfield. Charles F. Hovey, Boston. 

Oliyer Gardner, Nantucket. John S. Stafford, Cummington. 

Henry I. Bowditch, Boston. James Russell Lowell, Cambridge. 

JosiAH Henshaw, West Brookfield. Richard Clap, Dorchester. 

Caroline Weston, Weymouth. William Whiting, Concord. 

Benjamin Snow, Jr., Fitchburg. A. A. Bent, Gardner. 

George Miles, Westminster. Ezekiel Thatcher, Barnstable. 

James N. Buffum, Lynn. David P. Harmon, Haverhill. 

CORREBPONDINQ SECRETARY. 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., Leicester. 

RECORDING SECRETARY. 

ROBERT F. WALLCUT, Boston. 

TREASURER. 

SAMUEL PHILBRICK, Brookline. 

AUDITOR. 

EDMUND JACKSON, Boston. 

COUNSELLORS. 

William Lloyd Garrison. Anne W. Weston. 

Edmund Quincy. Eliza Lee Follen. 

Wendell Phillips. John M. Speak. 

Maria Weston Chapman. Charles K. Whipple. 

John Rogers. William I. Bowditch. 

Cornelius Bbamhall. John T. Sabgbnt, 



PROCEEDINGS. 



Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery Society, 1854. 

The Twenty- Second Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slayery 
Society was held in Boston, at the Melodeon, on Wednesday, January 25, 
and by adjournment, on the 26th and 27th. 

The Society was called to order by Francis Jackson, the President, at 
lOh o'clock, A. M., of Wednesday. 

The following persons were nominated and chosen a Committee to report 
the usual Committees, together with Assistant Secretai'ies of the meeting : — 

Daniel S. Whitney, of Southboro' ; Dr. J. H. York, of Boston ; E. A. 
Stockman, of Cummington ; Alvan Howes, of Barnstable ; John Jones, of 
Eoxbury. 

This Committee unanimously reported as follows : — 

Business Committee — William Lloyd Garrison, Edmund Quincy, Wen- 
dell Phillips, Anne W. Weston, Andrew T. Foss, Joseph Barker, E. 
A. Stockman, C. L. Remond, C. C. Burleigh, Henry C. Wright, Dora 
M. Taft. 

Finance Committee — Lewis Ford, of Abington ; James N. Buffum, of 
Lynn ; Elbridge Sprague, of Abington ; Reuben H. Ober, of Boston. 

Assistant Secretaries — Samuel May, Jr., of Leicester ; Eliza J. Kenny, of 
. Salem. 

Their report was accepted, and the persons named duly elected. 

The Treasurer of the Society being detained from the meeting on account 
of ill health, his Annual Report of the Finances was road by Mr. May, one of 
the Secretaries ; — also the Certificate of the Auditor, Mr. Edmund Jackson, 
to the correctness of the Treasurer's accounts. Balance in Treasury, January 
1, 1854, $754.44 ; of which $350 was due, and has since been paid, to the 
American A nti- Slavery Society. 

Voted, unanimously, that the Treasurer's Report be accepted, and pub- 
lished with the minutes. 

Opportunity for vocal or silent prayer was given by the President. 
Portions of an Annual Statement of the operations of the Society were 



b PROCEEDINGS. 

then read by Mr. Mat, the General Agent of the Society. The Statement 
included an historical view of the working of the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
of the Yietims and Sufferers from that cruel enactment. 

On motion of H. C. Weight, seconded by Joseph Barker, Samuel Mat, 
Jr., William Llotd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quinct, and 
Edmund Jackson were made a Committee upon the publication of the facts 
and statements collected by Mr. Mat, respecting the Fugitive Law. 

Henrt C. Wright offered the following resolutions, and spoke briefly in 
defence of them : — 

Besolvecl, That Slavery is a denial of the self-evident facts of human exist- 
ence, and therefore is a wrong which no being, book, creed, constitution, 
law, nor circumstance, can make right. 

Resolved, That we reject the authority of all books, creeds, constitutions, 
laws, and commands, by whomsoever written or adopted, which assert the 
rightfulness or expediency of Slavery. 

Resolved, That we deny the existence, and repudiate the worship of any 
being as God, that justifies the existence and perpetuity of Slavery. 

Joseph Barker, of Ohio, spoke eloquently of the great Sin of Slavery, and 
the extraordinary inconsistency of the American people in sustaining it. 

Mr. Garrison read, from a Virginia paper, a ludicrously spiteful article, 
levelled at Massachusetts in general, and at the city of New Bedford in par- 
ticular, on account of the fugitive Slaves said to be residing there, and also 
on account of the signal failure which certain Slave-hunters from Virginia 
had recently experienced, in an attempt to find and seize several fugitive 
Slaves from that State, who were understood to be in New Bedford, but who 
were nowhere to be foimd by the TJ. S. Marshal and his men, who went 
thither from Boston on that honorable (!) errand. 

Adjourned to quarter before 3, P. M. 



Afternoon. The President in the Chair. 

No resolution or business being as yet reported by the Committee, Henrt 
C. Wright again read the resolutions offered by him in the morning. 

Samuel Mat, Jr. objected to the phraseology of Mr. Wright's resolutions, 
and expressed the hope that they might be modified, so as to avoid the in- 
troduction here of topics simply theological, and to avoid also unnecessary 
mismiderstanding and misrepresentation of our objects, as an Anti-Slavery 
Society. 

Charles C. Burleigh also thought that Mr. Wright's resolutions were 
theological in their character, and liable to be misunderstood. He moved 
their reference to the Business Committee, with instructions to report them 
in a form affirming that the great Creator and Ruler of the Universe, whom 
we know as God, does, in his very nature, and in all the manifestations he 
has made of himself to men, forever abhor and condemn slavery, and all the 
outrages and cruelties it inflicts upon men. The motion was seconded by 
Mr. Mat, and by others, simultaneously, and the resolutions were referred 
accordingly, without dissent. 



PROCEEDINGS. 7 

C. C. BuKLEiGH, from the Business Committee, reported tlie following 
resolution : — 

Resolved, That all the signs of the time portend a strong effort, on the part 
of the Slave Power, to monopolize the functions and control the policy of 
the government still more entirely than in times past — in trampling under 
foot the Missouri Compromise as to the Nebraska Territory — in the acquisi- 
tion of fresh Slave territory in the Mesilla valley — in obtaining the sanction 
of the Supreme Court for the presence of Slaveholders with their Slaves in 
the free States — and in re-opening the Slave trade by granting compensation 
to the pirates in the Amistad case. 

Joseph Barker briefly expressed his idea of the necessity of clear, intelli- 
gent, and correct views of the true relation of the Bible to the prevailing 
wrongs and crimes of the age. He did not feel sure that it was right to dis- 
cuss these topics here ; but, either here or elsewhere, men must discuss 
them, and abolitionists especially are bound to do it. 

Mr. Barker then spoke at length, and with much effect, of the various 
ideas entertained in different ages with regard to Slavery — of the policy and 
plans of American Slaveholders and their allies at the present time — and of 
the hopeful prospects of the cause of Liberty. 

C. C. Burleigh, in an eloquent speech, sustained the resolution he had 
reported. 

It was announced that, at the evening sessions, the small admission-fee of 
five cents would be taken at the door. 

Adjourned to 7 o'clock, P. M. 



Evening. The President in the Chair. 

The following series of resolutions, from the Business Committee, were 
reported, and taken up for discussion : — 

Whereas, In the second number of his paper, The Citizen, in an article 
sneering at James Haughton, one of the most active and meritorious philan- 
thropists of Ireland, John Mitchel, the Irish fugitive from British power, 
the mock rebel and self-elected champion of Irish liberty, unblushingly de- 
clares — " We deny that it is a crime, or a wrong, or even a peccadillo, to 
hold Slaves, to buy Slaves, to sell Slaves, to keep Slaves to their work, by 
flogging or other needful coercion" — adding, "We, for o\ir part, wish we 
had a good plantation weU stocked with healthy negroes, in Alabama " — 
therefore. 

Resolved, That John Mitchel has revealed himself to be a braggart 
patriot, and a thoroughly unprincipled man, utterly recreant to all his pro- 
fessions of liberty, a "patriotic" wolf in sheep's clothing, a Slave-driver 
in spirit, and deserving the execrations of the friends of impartial liberty 
throughout the world. 

Resolved, That it is fortunate for Ireland, that this hollow patriot did not 
succeed in his supremely selfish pvirposes, while assuming to seek her de- 
liverance from British misrule, and equally fortunate that he was banished 
as a felon, to Van Dieman's Land, on account of his murderous machina- 
tions ; whUe his presence here is to be regarded as a curse to the soil on 
which he treads, and poison to the atmosphere which he inhales. 

Resolved, That the base apostacy of John Mitchel makes the memory of 
the great and lamented O'Connell all the more dear to us, for spurning the 



PROCEEDINGS. 

blood-sta;ned money -which was sent from this country to the Repeal Asso- 
ciation, to silence his voice on the subject of American Slavery, and nobly 
exclaiming, " I do n't care for the consequences ! I will not restrain mj' honest 
indignation of feeling. I pronounce every man a faithless miscreant, who 
does not take a part for the abolition of Slavery. Come what may, I will 
never countenance Slavery at home or abroad. Though it should be a blow 
against Ireland, it is a blow in favor of human liberty, and I will strike that 
blow. Let them blame me in America — let me be execrated by them — 
still, Slavery, I denounce you wherever you are ! Come freedom, come op- 
pression to Ireland — let Ireland be as she may — I will have my conscience 
clear before my God. I am bound not to look to consequences, but to justice 
and humanity — though the liberty of Ireland, the repeal of the Union itself, 
are to abide the result. Wherever tyranny exists, I am the foe of the 
tyrant ; wherever oppression shows itself, I am the foe of the oppressor ; 
wherever Slavery rears its head, I am the enemy of the system, or the insti- 
tution, call it by what name you will I am the friend of liberty in every 
clime, class, and color — my sympathy with distress is not confined within 
the narrow bound of my own green island. No ! It extends itself to every 
corner of the earth. My heart walks abroad, and wherever the miserable is 
to be succored, and the Slave is to be set free, there my spirit is at home, and 

1 delight to dwell in its abode." 

The floor was first taken by Henuy Kemp, of Boston, a native of Ireland. 
He reviewed the conduct of John Mitchel and his "Young Ireland" 
friends, during the time of the Repeal contest in Ireland, and said, that for 
himself he had never been able to explain John Mitchel's conduct at that 
time, in any other way than by supposing him a tool and spy of the British 
Government. It is no new thing, said Mr. K., to put down a popular move- 
ment in Ireland by employing so-called joa)';-t"o<s as spies. And, further, said 
Mr. K., when I found th;it Mitchel, though banished by the English gov- 
ernment to Australia, was treated on tlie passage thither with the greatest 
attention by the government officials, attended by servants, dinmg with the 
captain, and in all respects treated in a manner most unusual for a felon : — 
and when I found him living in Van Dieman's Land a life of leisure, riding 
about the country, and after a time so easily breaking away from his confine- 
ment, and escaping to this country, I was led more than ever to suspect that 
the English government winked at his movement, and that he was thus paid 
for services rendered. Mr. Kemp denounced John Mitchel as a traitor, in 
most indignant terms ; he said he had long believed, and now he was sure, 
that there is not a more unprincipled man living than John Mitchel. 

I have spoken thus here, said Mr. Kemp, because, though poverty com- 
pelled me to leave Ireland, I love her still ; and because I want to do some- 
thing to save her from the disgrace which such men as Mitchel, and M'Gee, 
and others of that school, have brought upon her. I am an Irish abolition- 
ist. I do not hold to freedom for myself and my countrymen, and go for the 
slavery of the colored man, or any man. And I do not believe, either, that 
there is anything in the nature of Irishmen to make them love slavery, and 
hate liberty. They are mis-taught ; they are deceived and prejudiced, by 
selfish and designing men, against the aboUtionists and their cause, and are 
kept away carefully from the anti-slavery meetings ; and they are ignorant 
of the nature and character of the cause. Mr. K. (himself a Cathohc,) also 



PROCEEDINGS. 9 

spoke of their religion, as being employed as an instrument of tyranny over 
their minds and conduct. (Mr. K. took his seat, amidst much applause.) 

Joseph Barker, of Ohio, (but a native of England, and only recently 
from that country,) began with quoting John Mitchel's infamous senti- 
ments respecting Slavery, as lately put forth by him in his new paper. 
He then passed to Mitchel's insulting attack upon James Haughton, of 
Dublin, a well-known merchant and active philanthropist of that city, — 
a man whom John Mitchel, even in his scurrilous article, is obhged to 
acknowledge to be a worthy man. Mr. Haughton was a friend to Mitchel 
and to Meagher in Ireland, and it was very natural that he should write 
to them, on their arrival in this country, and express his hope that they 
would speak out boldly against oppression and slavery here, as they had 
done in Ireland against British oppression. John Mitchel's attack upon 
Mr. Haughton is, therefore, mean and ungrateful, as well as wholly un- 
warranted by facts. For Mr. Haughton is truly worthy of respect, as a 
generous friend to every benevolent cause, and the charges and insinua- 
tions of Mitchel against him are calumnious and vde to the last degree. 
Once, said Mr. Barker, I was a friend to John Mitchel, and, through 
my paper. The People, I defended him, and advocated the movement against 
the English government in which he Avas engaged. I am deeply sorry 
now, that I ever identified myself with him ; for he has shown himself a 
dishonest and false man. I did not then distrust his heart, nor doubt 
his sincerity and absolute devotion to Ireland ; though I did wonder at 
many of his acts, which appeared to me extremely foolish. But now, I see 
and understand him differently ; and I believe that he was a knave and a 
traitor in Ireland then, as I know he is a sycophant and traitor in America 
now. He has disgraced his country, and, so far as he can, he has disgraced 
his friends. But some of his former friends will not be disgraced by him, but 
will speak out against every form of Slavery, all the more loudly for his 
recreancy. Mr. Barker closed with reading an article which he had writ- 
ten, and which was published in the Pennsylvania Freeman, on first seeing 
Mitchel's infamous avowal of his desire to be a Slaveholder. The article 
has appeared in the Anti-Slavery journals generally. Though exceedingly 
severe and condemnatory of Mr. JMitchel, few, if any, will say it is a whit 
more so than the case justifies. (Mr. Barker's remarks were warmly ap- 
plauded.) 

W. Symington Brown, formerly of Scotland, said he arose to perform, in 
the words of another, " a disagreeable duty." I did not, he said, come to this 
meeting with any design to speak. But as you have been addressed, on tliis 
painful subject, first by an Irishman, and next by an Englishman, I have 
thought a few words from a Scotchman would not be ill-timed or inajipro- 
priate. I too, Sir, when at home, was a friend to John Mitchel, and in a 
little paper which I published at Glasgow, I defended him, and I justified 
his position, with the exception of his zealous desire for a violent and bloody 
struggle, and his wish to use vitriol and other like weapons against the 
English soldiery. For so defending him, I suffered prosecution and impris- 
onment. Still, however, I adhered to liim, and I kept his portrait hanging 
2 



10 PROCEEDINGS. 

in my humble dwelling, side by side with that of my Lord and Saviour. 
But when I read, the other day, his vile and hateful sentiments on American 
Slavery, I tore down his picture from my walls, (bursts of applause,) and I 
cast it from me, as I have cast forever his image from my heart. (Prolonged 
cheering.) 

John C. Cluer, also a native of Scotland, expressed his indignant feelings 
against the traitor Mitchel. He adduced several facts to show the false- 
hood of his statements about Mr. Haughton, and the ingratitude of his 
heart. Mr. Cluer mentioned instances in which colored men had stood, 
nobly and firmly, with and by John Mitchel, in his struggle against Eng- 
land, and had suffered banishment for it. Now, John Mitchel wants a 
plantation in Alabama, well stocked with the brothers of these his old 
friends and faithful companions ! The villain ! (Applause.) 

Henry Kemp said a few words to defend himself against a charge of in- 
consistency in having once contributed money to aid the Young Ireland 
movement. 

Joseph Barker said that, when he spoke in praise of this country's in- 
stitutions, he always excepted the treatment of the colored people, and the 
infernal system of Slavery. 

Charles Lenox Remond, of Salem, came forward. He said it was not 
needful to add anything to the rebukes which had been so powerfully and 
eloquently administered to-night to John Mitchel. The most scorching 
rebuke of him came, indeed, from his own land, — in every effort for freedom 
of her true sons, in the rich, free gifts of her daughters, to help the Anti- 
Slavery cause here. Mr. E.. testified to the falsehood of Mitchel's charges 
against Mr. Haughton. And he branded the man as a rascal, who could 
come to this country, fresh from his denunciation of British tjnranny, and 
wish to enslave the native born negroes on our soil. (Great applause.) 

Wendell Phillips said he had been asked to say something about John 
Mitchel. But he had looked carefully about, and he could n't see that any- 
thing was left of him. He must say that John Mitchel gave, in his own 
case, the strongest proof that ever had come to his knowledge, of British 
tyranny ; for it had utterly crushed the life out of one whom it had recog- 
nized as worthy of its persecution, and had sent him to us, the poorest and 
meanest Slave he had ever heard of. (Great applause.) 

Mr. Phillips proceeded to glance at the present fearful position of this 
nation ; our vast unsettled territory proposed to be opened to Slavery ; the 
Missouri Compromise Line designed to be swept away ; the vast Mesilla 
Valley bought, to make new Slave states ; and Congress proposing to pay, 
for the Amistad negroes, a large sum of money to their lawless and piratical 
kidnappers ! In these circumstances, where are the popular leaders ? Who 
is asserting and defending the cause of liberty ? Mr. Douglass has made his 
offer for the Presidency. Mr. Everett waits awliile before he makes his. 
The Abolitionists must re-commence their labors, and do again their first 
works, — proclaim the old first principle of their movement, and kindle 
anew the fires of freedom in the hearts of the people. (Mr. P.'s remarks were 
heard with great attention, and were warmly applauded.) 
Adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS. 11 



THURSDAY. 

Met again at the Melodeon, at 10, A. M. The President in the Chair. 

The resolutions before the meeting were read by the Secretary. 

J. C. Cluer hoped the question on the Mitchel resolutions would not be 
taken now, as he desired the fullest opportunity td be given to the friends of 
Mr. Mitchel to speak in his defence. 

The President replied that the question had not been called for, and 
would not probably be taken at present. 

Mr. Cluer made some further remarks on the question. 

Rev. E. A. Stockman, of Cummington, Hampshire County, spoke elo- 
quently on the general subject of Slavery. He developed with great clear- 
ness and power the Pro-Slavery influences which are now working upon the 
public mind and conscience, with a view to stifle feehng and suppress utter- 
ance. He particularly exposed the cowardly and faithless course, too gen- 
erally pursued by the so-called churches and ministers of the country. 

Samuel May, Jr., offered the following resolutions, and sustained them in 
a few remarks : — 

Resolved, That the friends of the Anti- Slavery cause, present at this meet- 
ing, be requested to contribute the sum of one dollar each, or such other 
sum as may be in their power, to defray the expenses of the Annual Meet- 
ing. And further. 

Resolved, That all the members of the Society, and the friends of the Anti- 
Slavery cause, whether present or absent, be earnestly invoked to send to 
the Treasurer, donations of money, or pledges to be redeemed during the 
year, that the Society may be enabled to continue its warfare upon all the 
defences of Slavery, and break up the apathy and indifference which so 
fearfully brood over the public mind. 

"Wendell Phillips spoke eloquently for a renewed and fresh consecration 
of time and talents to the cause. 

The Finance Committee, meanwhile, proceeded to the discharge of their 
duties, which they afterwards, from time to time, continued during the ses- 
sions of the meeting. 

Daniel S. Whitney, from the Committee on Nominations, reported the 
following as a Committee on the Officers of the Society for the year 
ensuing : — 

Edmund Quincy, of Dedham ; William Whiting, of Concord ; Richakd 
Clap, of Dorchester ; William Asuby, of Newburj-port ; John Clement, 
of Townsend; Paulina Gerry, of Stoneham ; Mehetabel Haskell, of 
Gloucester ; Joseph Merrill, of Danvers ; and Jacob Leonard, of East 
Bridgewater. 

The Report was unanimously, accepted, and the persons named elected 
said Committee. 

Mr. Garrison exhibited to the meeting a large handbill, printed in New 
Orleans, Louisiana, advertising for sale, " 184 Valuable Plantation Slaves," 
names, ages, &c., &c., given. They are of aU ages, from near sixty, down to 
one and a haK years. The sale is yet to take place, viz. on the loth of Feb- 



12 PROCEEDINGS. 

ruary, by the Auctioneers J. A. Beard & May. Mr. Garrison made some 
comments on the heart-sickening fact, in this country, of a pubhc sale of 
human beings — God's immortal children. 
Adjourned. 

Afternoon. The President in the Chair. 

Charles C. Burleigh, from the Business Committee, reported the three 
following resolutions, in place of those which, on Wednesday afternoon, had 
been referred to the Committee to appear in a new draft : — 

Resolved, That American Slavery is a practical denial of self-evident truths 
concerning the nature and rights of man, and the essence and character of 
God ; and is, therefore, essentially, and imder all possible circumstances, 
wrong. 

Resolved, That every book, creed, or law, which either emanates from God, 
or is m harmony with His will, is necessarily opposed to the doctrine that 
chattel Slavery is right or expedient; and, consequently, nothing which 
favors that doctrine can be of divine origin, or worthy of human reverence or 
allegiance. 

Resolved, therefore. That to affirm that the Bible sanctions Slavery, is prac- 
tically to deny its divine authority ; and is, moreover, to represent it as 
grossly inconsistent with its own fundamental principles of justice, its own 
great commandments of love supreme to God, and love to our neighbor as 
ourselves ; and to affirm that the Constitution and laws of the land sanction 
Slavery, is to affirm that they contravene the supreme law binding on all 
men and nations, and are, therefore, utterly null and void. 

Henry C. Wright presented the two following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That the government of the United States, so far as it was de- 
signed by its founders to protect, propagate, and perpetuate Liberty, has, 
by consecrating its energies to the protection, propagation, and perpetuation 
of Slavery, utterly failed to accompUsh the object for which it was formed, 
and it is the right and the duty of the people to change or abolish that gov- 
ernment, and to establish one that shall protect all under its jurisdiction, in 
their inalienable right to life, hberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Resolved, That should the government succeed in its present plan to abolish 
the Missouri Compromise, and to throw open all the vast public domain to 
Slavery and the Slave-trade, we consider that the time has fully come for the 
people practically to assert their right of Revolution, and to establish a gov- 
ernment that shall secure to all under its jurisdiction their sacred right to 
freedom, and that shall be, in deed and in truth, an asylum for the oppressed 
oiall lands. 

Rev. Andrew T. Foss, of Manchester, N. H., spoke with much interest 
and effect, on the Nebraska question, &c. He traced the sad results upon the 
Indian, as well as upon the Negro races in this country, of the European 
immigration, and of what is called European civilization and religion. 

The resolutions upon pecuniary aid to the Society were called for, read 
again, and adopted. 

William Lloyd Garrison then came forward, and was received with 
much warmth of feeling. We regret that we are unable to give any adequate 
report of his remarks. He alluded, in begimiing, to the old question in 
Judea, — Have any of the rulers believed on him ? which, if answered in the 



PROCEEDINGS. 13 

negative, was sufficient to set aside the claims of Jesus. If the question were 
asked now, the answer would be difterent. All the rulers, now, make haste 
to profess a belief in Jesus ; and yet, they join hands with Slaveholders, 
enact the Fugitive Slave Law, open new territory to Slavery, and do all in 
their power to " crush " the Anti-Slavery cause. Recently, there appeared 
in an orthodox religious journal, at Portland, edited by Rev. Dr. Ccmmings, 
an article highly laudatory of President Pierce, because he had family 
prayers every day, at the White House, and grace was said at his table ! 
Yet, see his course and policy, pledging himself to maintain the Fugitive 
Slave Law, and the compromises with Slavery, Bnd recommending in his 
annual message, that the kidnappers of the Amistad negroes should receive 
compensation for the loss of their property, although the decision of the 
United States Courts was, that those Negroes were kidnapped from Africa, 
and were lawfully free. 

Yet, said Mr. G., as we look over the world, we find the good, the true, 
the worthy, are on our side. These are not few in numbers, they are mighty 
in power, and God will yet give us the victory. Those who attended the re- 
cent Bazaar, in this city, saw a remarkable sight, in the Address of the 
five hundred and seventy thousand Women of Great Britain to the Women 
of America. There were recorded the names of women m every rank and 
situation of life, from the most affluent and distinguished, down to the most 
lowly. Yes, here they all were, united by their common humanity and by 
the testimony of their common heart against the cruel and imrighteous sys- 
tem of American Slavery, to offer their joint protest against its abominations. 
It was a great deed ; and the Address is a noble and an enduring monument 
of the philanthropy and Christian sympathy of the women of Great Britain. 

Mr. G. spoke of the Slave population of our country, and of the vast addi- 
tion annually made to their numbers, thereby adding just so much to the 
financial and political power of their oppressors. Not less than one hundred 
thousand are annually born into Slavery. At the market value, these are 
to be reckoned at not less than fifty dollars each ; making an annual addi- 
tion, in fresh victims, of five millions of dollars to the wealth and power of 
the Slaveholders. 

And what is doing on the other side ? I read, said he, within a few days, 
that a single church and congregation in this city (Rev. E. N. Kirk's) had 
subscribed over four thousand dollars, for the year, to the cause of Foreign 
Missions, and it was said that the amount would undoubtedly be raised to 
six thousand dollars. Six thousand dollars, in one congregation, in a single 
year, for the conversion of the heathen abroad ! But ask this same church 
and congregation to contribute for preaching the gospel to three and a half 
millions of Slaves at Jiome, the greater part of whom are in " a heathen con- 
dition," (so testified by Southern religious bodies,) and what would they 
give ? Not six cents. 

What did the American Anti-Slavery Society receive last year ? Only 
about six or seven thousand dollars for all its operations, to sustain all its 
agents, and to sustain, also, its organ, the National Anti- Slavery Standard. 



14 PROCEEDINGS. 

And of this sum, a considerable proportion was furnished by the contribu- 
tions of friends abroad, through the Bazaar. 

Mr. G . then spoke of the terrible and traitorous blow which has just been 
struck against the cause of liberty by John Mitchel. 

Mr. Haitghton, said Mr. G., needs no commendation from us. As a gen- 
tleman, he is one of the model men of Europe, — as a lover of his country, 
ever devoted and active, — as a friend of his race, ready to every good word 
and work. It is an infamous allegation that he, being a corn-merchant, has 
speculated in the sufferings and needs of his countrjTnen. It is a false and 
libellous charge. And John Mitchel would have us believe that Jesus 
Cheist himself would have held Slaves, and coveted a Slave plantation had 
he dwelt in America. Mr. G. referred to Daniel O'Connell, and his de- 
claration, that he would never come to this country, so long as Slavery con- 
tinued. But I rejoice, said he, that John Mitchel has come out so plainly, 
and at once. We now know the man, and nobody will be deceived by his 
cant about liberty. 

A voice in the gallery — "Thank God, the Irish are not all John Mitch- 
els." This was said in an unmistakable Irish accent, and elicited much 
applause. 

And yet, said Mr. Garrison, is John Mitchel a sinner above all men .'' 
What more has he said than Bishop Hedding, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, when he defended Slavery as in accordance with the Golden 
Rule ? Wherein is he worse than Moses Stuart, of Andover, and all others 
who have defended, or are defending. Slavery as in accordance with the word 
and will of God ? 

Mr. Garrison's speech produced a very deep impression. 

Adjourned. 

Evening. The President in the Chair. 

The meeting was addressed, at this session, by William L. Garrison, 
Joseph Barker, and Wendell Phillips. A phonographic report was 
taken of their remarks, and they were published at length in the Anti- 
Slavery journals of the time. 

Adjourned to Friday. 

FRIDAY. 

Re-assembled at the Melodeon. President in the chair. 

The resolutions before the Society were again read. 

G. W. Putnam, of Lynn, took the floor. He alluded to some remarks 
about himself in the Liberator, and said that for twenty years he had never 
faltered in his Anti-Slavery course, though he had continually suffered on 
that account. Mr. P. went on to express his disagreement with some of the 
views advanced, the evening previous, by Messrs. Garrison and Phillips. 
He denied that there could be any genuine Anti- Slavery or philanthropy in 
the nobility and aristocracy of England, inasmuch as they were themselves 
the grievous oppressors of their fellow men. 



PROCEEDINGS. 15 

J. C. Cluer replied to Mr. Putnam, pointing out several erroneous as- 
sumptions of his, and showing the vast diiference between any foreign 
oppression and American Slavery. 

William H, Fish, of Hopedale, addressed the meeting in an earnest and 
excellent speech, showing some of the principal hindrances and difficulties 
in the way of the progress of Anti- Slavery, but evincing still an unshaken 
faith in its certain triumph over them all. 

Rev. Hiram Wilson, of St. Catherine's, Canada West, offered the follow- 
ing resolutions : — 

Resolved, That hell from beneath is moved to meet all tyrants at their com- 
ing, whether American or trans-atlantic ; and that, while we pity the crushed 
victims of Slavery and oppression, and would do everything in our power 
for their speedy deliverance in accordance with the Golden Rule of the law 
of love, given by the great Redeemer of mankind, we cherish unmingled 
abhorrence, but no malevolent feeling, towards the tyrant and the Slave- 
holder, and regard true Abolitionists, of every land, as their only faithful 
friends, who fain would save them from the awful doom that awaits them. 

Resolved, That the numerous and rapidly increasing colored population of 
Canada have given and are now affording full and convincing proofs, that 
they are eminently deserving the blessed boon of Freedom for which they 
struggled in the midst of difficulties and dangers seldom, if ever, experienced 
by any people, and that it is pleasingly evident that those who have escaped 
from Southern yokes, and whips, and branding-irons, and patrols, are not 
incompetent to •' take care of themselves." 

Mr. Wilson supported these resolutions in some interesting remarks, in 
the course of which he related the cases of several persons who had escaped 
from Slavery, and were now living in Canada. They had abundantly vin- 
dicated their ability to take care of themselves and their families, and to 
command the respect and confidence pf those about them. 

Adjourned. 



Afternoon. The President in the chair. 

W. L. Garrison, from the Business Committee, reported the following 
resolutions : — 

Resolved, That this Society feels the highest pleasure on learning that 
George Thompson, of England, the early, incorruptible, eloquent, and 
powerfully efficient advocate of the Slave, is once more publicly in the field, 
at home, and actively consecrating his time and talents to the glorious work 
of concentrating and directing the entire public sentiment (and especially the 
religious influence) of England against the Satanic Slave system in America ; 
and we beg him to assure every audience which he may be permitted to 
address, every religious body with which he may be in correspondence, and 
every friend of humanity with whom he may come in contact, that no testi- 
mony borne by them against our great national sin can possibly do any 
injury, but it will greatly encourage and strengthen the friends, and dis- 
hearten the foes, of negro emancipation on our soil. 

Whereas, it is the declared puri)o.se of the present national Administration 
to exclude from every official station under the government, every man who 
refuses to support "the Compromise Measures of 1850, including the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law," or to wear a padlock on his lips in regard to the subject 



16 PROCEEDINGS. 

of Slavery; thus wielding the terrible power of the government to the 
enlargement and perpetuation of the Slave Power, and the "crushing out" 
of the An ti- Slavery spirit universally ; therefore, 

Resolved, That Fratjklin Pierce is guilty of high treason against the cause 
of Liberty — of trampling under foot the provisions of the Constitution, and 
making it more than ever the guardian and bulwark of a form of despotism 
too revolting to be tolerated on the soil of Europe ; and, therefore, he is to 
be impeached and branded as the vilest of all the tyrants who now curse the 
nations of the earth — and as one upon whom Prus IX. of Italy, and Francis 
Joseph, of Austria, and Nicholas, of Russia, may look down with scorn 
and derision. 

Resolved, That usurpation so daring and profligate as this should cause all 
party lines to be obliterated, until the Administration is made to sink under 
the weight of popular indignation, and the Slave Power is driven out of 
existence. 

Wendell Phillips spoke, showing by numerous proofs the work which 
the Anti-Slavery agitation has accomplished in the country, and particularly 
upon Southern opinion and action. He then spoke of the infamous purpose 
of the Administration, and of certain aspiring Northern politicians, to destroy 
the Missouri Compromise, by way of propitiating the favor and gaining the 
support of Slaveholders. He next alluded to the misrepresentation of him, 
by one of the speakers in the morning, in saying that he praised the institu- 
tions of England. He had done no such thing. All he had said was, that 
England was far better than the United States. And that was saying abso- 
lutely nothing. But this he would say, that the statute-book of England 
has, for years, been steadily rising higher in the scale of justice and human- 
ity, becoming more and more free from unequal and oppressive enactments 
and severe penalties ; while that of the United States has been as certainly 
and steadily growing more and more odious. And when we make such a 
comparison, we are to remember the wide difference in the situation and 
circumstances of the two nations — the one, old, hemmed in by narrow lim- 
its, and crowded with a dense population, crippled by the effects of former 
misrule, and burdened with enormous debts — the other, young, fresh, free 
from debt, with a vast unsettled territory of great fertility, waiting to be 
occupied and tilled by tens of millions of people. When these things are 
taken into the account, as in honesty they should be, we cannot fail to be 
still more impressed with the advance made in England in the science of 
government, and in regard for the well-being of the people. Indeed, the 
tyi-anny of the worst despotisms of the Old World becomes light, in the 
comparison with American Slavery. 

Mr. Gariuson spoke in support of the resolutions on the National Admin- 
istration. 

Rev. Theodore Parker addressed the meeting in a speech of some length, 
prepared with evident care, and delivered with much effect. [We hope that 
Mr. Parker may write out this speech for publication ; meanwhile, we take 
in part from the Commomvealth, the foUowmg sketch of it.] 

Rev. Theodore Parker spoke for nearly an hour and a half upon the 
present aspect and position of the Slave Power in America. He referred to 
this power as regards its territorial extent, comparing its former circum- 



PROCEEMNQS. 17 

scribed limits with its present extended area. The unoccupied territory was 
to be the battle-ground upon which would be contested the subject of Sla- 
very, in Congress, at this session. Every church has its symboUcal books ; 
every State has also its books or Constitution. Russia has none, but its 
book is the Czar. American churches worship the unacknowledged god — 
Mammon. Many of our ministers, with the Bible before them, inaugurate 
the worship of Mammon. The principle of the Whig party was to put 
money before man — the principle of the Democratic party was to put the 
majority before the instinctive right of man. 

Allusion was made to the Inaugural Address of President Pierce, in which 
he declared his purpose to carry out the principles of the Missouri Compro- 
mise. The Constitution has several times been violated by the Slaveholding 
power. The Bible Society will not distribute its Bibles among the Slave 
population. The Tract Society looks over its publications, and strikes out 
everything opposed to Slavery. In the North, there is an effort, to-day, 
to get rid of Slavery. There are those who are earnestly laboring, but the 
Free Soil party is not on its feet, but on its back. It has not lost its legs, 
but has slipped and fallen. Yet its heart is sound, and it will yet rise up 
again and stand. Allusion was made to the delegation of the Anti-Slavery 
party in Congress, He paid a just and worthy compliment to Messrs. 
Sumner and Chase, for their efforts in the Senate, and Messrs. Smith and 
GiDDiNGS of the House. A touching tribute was paid to the memory of 
Robert Rantoul, Jr. He enumerated several favorable indications in the 
South, which, at present, promised much good to the cause of Freedom. 
Several names were mentioned, of men who are fishing for the Presidency, 
among whom were Cass, Douglass, Everett, Lawrence, Foote, and 
Davis ; and he said that, after we have had Polk, Fillmore, and Pierce, 
there is nobody so low but that they can aspire. Allusion was made to 
Bedini, the Pope's nuncio, who, he said, came here with his hand red with 
his brother's blood, and two eminent Senators had made an attempt to wash 
it white as snow. 

Adjourned. 



Evening. The President in the Chair. 

Edmund Quincy, from the Committee on that subject, reported the fol- 
lowing for Officer^ of the Society during the ensuing year. [See Officers of 
the Society, page 4.] 

The report was unanimously accepted; and the persons therein named 
elected Officers for the year ensuing. 

Charles C. Burleigh read the first three resolutions before the meeting, 
and spoke very ably in their support. 

Frederick Douglass being called for by several voices in the audience, 
came to the platform and made a few remarks on the resolutions read by 
Mr. Burleigh, and some other topics. 

Edmund Quincy spoke, chiefly to the rescinding of the Mi.ssouri Compro- 
mise. He traced the policy and successive triumphs of the Slave Power with 
3 



18 PROCEEDINGS. 

great ability ; and predicted the complete success, for the time, of aU its 
schemes, unless the Northern people shook off their apathy, acquired some 
manliness of spirit, and showed a determined resistance to this desperate, yet 
really in themselves feeble, band of Slaveholders. " 

Jerome B. Taft, formerly of McGrawville College, addresssed the meet- 
ing in a brief but spirited speech. 

Mr. Gaerison, from the Business Committee, introduced the foUomng 
resolution : — 

Whereas, our faithful and beloved coadjutor, Parker Pillsbury, after 
many years of arduous and unremitted labors in the Anti-Slavery cause, as 
an Agent both of the American and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Societies, 
to the prostration of his health, so that he has deemed it expedient to take a 
voyage to Europe for its restoration ; therefore, 

Resoloed, That we warmly commend him to the generous hospitality, fra- 
ternal confidence, and earnest cooperation of the friends of negro emancipa- 
tion in particular, and the cause of freedom universally, wherever he may 
travel abroad ; that our best wishes, mingled with the blessings of " those 
who are ready to perish," go with him ; and that we trust he will, in due 
time, be restored to his family and friends, to his co-laborers, and the field 
of conflict with the Slave Power, with his bodily health fully restored, and 
his heart greatly strengthened, to enter afresh into the work of " undoing the 
heavy burdens, breaking every yoke, and letting the oppressed go free." 

In a very clear and affecting speech, Mr. Garrison asserted and defended 
the rights of the enslaved population of the land, and denounced their wicked 
and cruel oppressors. 

A stranger in the audience arose to complain of what Mr. Gabeison had 
said of the churches and mmisters of the North. He knew a great many 
ministers, who were thoroughly Anti- Slavery, and prepared to work for the 
overthrow of Slavery. 

Mr. Garrison rephed, Who has said that there are no Anti-Slavery minis- 
ters and churches .' No one. We know, and rejoice to know, there are such ; 
but we also know, that they are very few. They are the exceptions, who 
will always take care of themselves, and who will vindicate suiiiciently their 
own position and character. And if the numerous ministers, of whom the 
gentleman has spoken, are so Anti- Slavery, and so wiUing to work in this 
cause, why do we not see some of them here to-day ? 

Chaeles L. Remond said that, feeling quite unAvell, this afternoon, he 
had gone home to Salem. But when he arrived there, 1^ felt worse, and so 
he came back again ! He rejoiced to have one more opportunity to lift up 
his voice, in Boston, to protest against the infamous system of Slaveholding 
at the South, and the equally infamous spirit of negro-hate at the North. 
He referred particularly to the recently published statement, that Mr. Wil- 
liam Appleton, llcpresentative from Boston, in Congress, had made a large 
donation to the Colonization Society, to assist in sending eighty colored 
persons to Liberia. Mr. Remonu denounced the act, as one of negro- 
proscription and hatred, and as showing Mr. Appleton to be an enemy to 
the colored people. Mr. Remond spoke with very great warmth, and with 
true eloquence, and was loudly applauded. 



PROCEEDINGS. 19 

The hour being late, Mr. Garrison moved the adoption of the several 
resolutions which had been reported to the meeting, and repeatedly read. 
The motion was seconded by many voices, and being put to the meeting, 
were unanimously adopted. 

The Society then adjourned, sine die. 



FRANCIS JACKSON, President. 
Samuel May, Jr., 
Eliza J. Kenny, 



R., ) 

} Assistant Secretaries. 



OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY, 1855. 

PRESIDENT. 

FRANCIS JACKSON, Boston. 



VICE PRESIDENTS. 



Andrew Robeson, New Bedford. 
Edmund Quincy, Dedham. 
Adin Ballou, Milford. 
Joshua T. Everett, Princeton. 
Effingham L. Capron, Worcester. 
Jefferson Church, Springfield. 
Oliver Gardner, Nantucket. 
Henrt I. BowDiTCH, Boston. 
JosiAH Henshaw, West Brookfield. 
Caroline Weston, Weymouth. 
Benjamin Snow, Jr., Fitchburg. 
George Miles, Westminster. 
James N. Buffum, Lynn. 
Cyrus Peirce, Newton. 
John T. Hilton, Brighton. 



Thomas T. Stone, Bolton. 
Bourne Spooneb, Plymouth. 
William Ashby, Newburyport. 
John Bailey, Lynn. 
John S. Stafford, Cummington. 
James Russell Lowell, Cambridge. 
Richard Clap, Dorchester. 
William Whiting, Concord. 
Ezekiel Thatcher, Barnstable. 
David P. Harmon, Haverhill. 
Charles Lenox Remond, Salem. 
John Clement, Townsend. 
Atkinson Stanwood, Newbujyport. 
Lewis Ford, Abington. 



CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., Leicester. 

RECORDING SECRETARY. 

ROBERT F. WALLCUT, Boston. 

TREASURER. 

SAMUEL PHILBRICK, Brookline. 

AUDITOR. 

EDMUND JACKSON, Boston. 



COUNSELLORS. , 
WiLLLi.M Lloyd Garrison. Wendell Phillips. 



Maria Weston Chapman. 
Cornelius Bramhall. 
Eliza Lee Follen. 
Edmund Quincy. 
John T. Sargent. 



John Rogers. 
Anne W. Weston. 
Charles K. Whipple. 
William I. Bowditch. 
Charles F. Ho vet. 



ANNUAL STATEMENT 



General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 
at the Twenty-third Annual Meeting, January, 1855. 



The General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in pre- 
senting the Annual Statement of the operations of the Society, cannot with- 
hold the expression of his regret — in which all the members of the Society, 
and all the friends of the Anti-Slavery cause cannot but largely share — at 
the interruption in the series of Annual Reports, which for twenty-one years 
so faithfully chronicled not only the Society's history, .but that of the entire 
movement in the United States, and in other countries also, against the 
gigantic wrong of Slavery. By an arrangement entered into, somewhat more 
than a year since, between the Executive Committee of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society and the Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety, the latter agreed to transfer, if we may so term it, its Annual Report to 
the former. There were many reasons for this course, and an evident pro- 
priety in the arrangement. In the first place, the American Society — the 
central, parent organization — had had no Annual Report for many years ; 
owing mainly to the fact that the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania State 
Societies each published annually a full Report — to say nothing of others 
by various local Societies. These Reports supplied all the seeming needs of 
the cause, and in reality rendered a third Report of a like full and compre- 
hensive character, almost superfluous. Still, there remained the manifest 
impropriety that the American Anti-Slavery Society — the national organ- 
ization, and that which chiefly represented, both at home and abroad, the 
associated movement against Slavery — should allow year by year to pass 
by, without uttering its own special word upon the subject. The thorough 
and admirable manner in which the two of its principal auxiliaries (already 
referred to) did the work of annually gathering up the statistics of the cause, 
and the abundant material for its history, did not seem a sufiicient reason or 
justification of its silence. Besides, the two State Reports were already in 
the main national in their character. It seemed, therefore, that there was 
little more to do, than to provide that one of these Reports should be made 
to the Annual Meeting of the American Society, and be published in its 
name, and this deficiency in its annual operations would at once become 
satisfactorily supplied. It was accordingly suggested, in many quarters, that 
the Massachusetts Society should surrender its Annual Report, and that, 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 23 

from that time forward, it should be made and published in the name of the 
American Society. In this way no real loss would be sustained by the 
Massachusetts Society, while an actual and a great gain would accrue to the 
American. There seemed, moreover, to be a greater propriety that such 
Reports, as for a succession of years had been made to the Massachusetts 
An ti- Slavery Society, should go forth in the name of a central and national, 
than of a local, State association. The readers of these Reports will well 
remember that their character, for some time past, has been national more 
than local ; that they have presented a comprehensive view of the whole 
country, as to its position towards Slavery, and indeed have aimed to pass 
nothing by, either at home or abroad, which had connection with, or a legiti- 
mate bearing upon, the great sin of American Slavery. In view of all these 
circiunstances, it was the unanimous conclusion of the Massachusetts Soci- 
ety, that the interests of our common cause would be best subserved, by 
yielding our Annual Report, as that of a local and auxiliary Society, to the 
parent, national organization ; — albeit there is a sense, which we who claim 
old Massachusetts for our mother, cannot willingly suffer to be forgotten — 
in which this Society is the parent of all other Anti- Slavery Societies in 
the land, — at least of all that regard Slavery as a crime and a sin, to be 
immediately repented of and put away. The Executive Committee of the 
American Society gladly accepted the arrangement made in its favor by the 
Massachusetts Society, and all looked forward to the American Society's 
resumption of its own series of Reports, so long discontinued, with confi- 
dent expectation that a far wider circulation and a more extensive influence 
awaited them, than while published in the name of a State Society. 

It may not be improper to say a few words here in relation to the series 
of Annual Reports which have emanated from the Massachusetts Anti- 
Slavery Society. 

It is difficult to contemplate, without at least a temporary feeling of regret, 
— the interruption, and, in one sense, termination of a series of documents, 
so able, so valuable, so long and faithfully continued, as, the Reports of this 
Society have been. Had the Society done nothing more than to call forth, 
and publish their Annual Reports, tliis alone would have justified the time, 
labor, and money which have been expended by it from the first. Twenty- 
one of these Re^Dorts appeared, in twenty-one successive years, and they now 
stand a noble and imperishable monument of the wisdom, moral courage, 
high principle, and faithful perseverance of the original founders of the 
Society, and of their successors from year to year. They constitute an 
invaluable body of materials for a thorough and reliable history of the Anti- 
Slavery cause. They are, indeed, the current history of the cause, from 
year to year, since the formation of the first Anti- Slavery Society in the land 
based upon the principle of the sinfulness of Slavery, and tlie duty of its 
immediate abolition. Of these twenty-one Reports, seven were written by 
Mr. Gahrison, two by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., one by Rev. Samuel J. 
May, now of Syracuse, N. Y., and the remaining eleven, for the last eleven 
years of the series, by Mr. Edmund Quixcy. The labors of the last named 
gentleman, in this particular — the thoroughness and comprehensiveness of 



24 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855 

his Reports, their accuracy, their sound philosophy, their critical survey and 
exposure of the many subtle influences, in political and ecclesiastical parties, 
■which go to sustain Slavery, have long since won for him, on both sides the 
Atlantic, the name and reputation of an Anti-Slavery historian, and have 
caused our Reports to be eagerly sought and highly prized by intelligent 
friends of the Anti- Slavery movement. 

By the arrangement made with the Executive Committee of the American 
Society, the further labors of Mr. Quincy, in this regard, were not to be 
lost to the cause, and we confidently hope they will not be. We will hope 
that they may be continued for yet many years, and through them that the 
■whole history of the mighty battle of the Nineteenth Century, the battle of 
the great Principle of Human Freedom with the vile dogma of Chattel 
Slavery, will be faithfully chronicled. We anticipate with all confidence, 
that, at its next Annual Meeting, the desired E.eport will be made to the 
American Anti-Slavery Society, and published in its name. 

In such circumstances, it became desirable, last year, that some one should 
prepare for the Annual Meeting of this Society at least a Statement of its 
operations during the year previous ; and it seemed to belong to no one so 
properly to do it, as to the General Agent of the Society. By him such a 
Statement was then made. The return of another Anniversary calls for a 
similar Statement from him of the Society's domgs for the year 1854, wliich 
he proceeds to give. 

In every way in which its Treasury and the Agents in its service could be 
rightfully employed, the Society has been steadily laboring during the year 
past. Immediately after the last Annual Meeting, it undertook anew the 
work of preaching the Gospel of Anti- Slavery, and of calling the people of 
New England to repentance of their sinful complicity in the bondage of their 
brethren, the three million Slaves in this boasted Christian Republic. It 
has had, for another year, a band of tried and faithful Agents, who have 
gone forth, fearing no sect, or party, or man — having no personal and selfish 
aims to promote — and resolved only to proclaim the truth with regard to 
this oppressive people and their victims in Slavery. 

To carry forward this work, the Society has had the funds raised and 
pledged at the last Annual Meeting, together with those raised and pledged 
(so far as paid in) at the New England Anti- Slavery Convention, held in 
May last. Being entrusted with the expenditure of the latter, the Society 
has felt its obligation to expend them, in part, in other of the New England 
States besides Massachusetts, and has endeavored to discharge its duty in 
that respect. 

The following Agents have been in the Society's service during the past 
year: — Stephen S. Foster, Abby Kelley Fostek, Andrew T. Foss, 
Charles C. Burleigh, Charles L. Remond, Nathaniel H. Whiting, 
Lewis Ford, and Sallie Holley. Also, Rev. Elnathan D.vvis, of Fitch- 
burg, and Rev. E. A. Stockman, of Cummington, as Local Agents. 

Mr. and Mrs. Foster were in the State during the entire year, though 
not able to devote their whole time to the direct service of the cause. In 
the early autumn, Mrs. Foster accepted the appointment of General Finan- 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 25 

cial Agent of tlio American Anti-Slavery Society, and, in that capacity, as 
well as in that of a lecturer, has rendered very efficient aid to that Society 
and the cause. Mr. Foster, during the autumn, set on foot a series of 
weekly Anti-Slavery Meetings in the City of Worcester, the place of his 
residence. To the revival of Anti-Slavery feeling, caused by those meetings, 
is to be attributed, in a good degree, that most praiseworthy and honorable 
deed, — the expulsion of the kidnapper, Asa O. Butman, from that city, — 
and the not less honorable fact that that base man was shielded from all 
bodily harm and safely conducted beyond the city's limits, by those very 
men whose detestation of his occupation was the strongest and the most 
undoubted, — by Mr. Foster, himself. Rev. T. W. Higginson, G. F. Hoar, 
Esq., Joseph A. Howland, and others. The prosecutions set on foot against 
Mr. Foster and others, by certain tools of the Slave Power, for the obvious 
purpose of gaining favor with the present National Administration, appear 
to have signally failed, — the Grand Jury of the County having refused to 
find bills of indictment against them, except in one or two instances for 
simple assault, of which the parties will very probably be acquitted on 
trial. 

Rev. Andrew T. Foss was an Agent of this Society for eight months, — 
from January 1st to September 1st, with the exception of a few weeks in 
which he was engaged as an agent of the Old Colony Anti- Slavery Society. 
Soon after the 1st of September, he accepted an Agency appointment from 
the American Anti-Slavery Society, and went to Michigan, in which State 
and in Indiana he has continued laboring earnestly and very acceptably to 
the present time, and will continue probably some months longer. 

Charles C. Burleigh was an Agent of this Society for about two months, 
in the early part of the year. Since that time he has been engaged mostly 
as an Agent of the American Society, in labors in Ohio and other Western 
States ; and at present is in Pennsylvania. 

Charles L. Remond has been, from' time to time, an Agent of this Society 
dxu'ing the year, and also of the American Society. His health, however, 
we regret to say, has been so much impaired and so precarious that we have 
been, to a considerable extent, disappointed in the aid we hoped to receive 
from him. 

Nathaniel H. Whiting and Lewis Ford were, for a short time, associated 
in lecturing labors as Agents of this Society. 

Sallie Holley renewed an engagement with this Society as a Lecturing 
Agent, at the commencement of the winter, since which she has been occu- 
pied in the northerly part of Worcester County, and in some adjoining towns 
in Middlesex County. 

Rev. Elnathan Davis, of Fitchburg, and Rev. E. A. Stockman, of Cum- 
mington, both of them Pastors of Societies in their respective tovnis, have 
been local Agents of this Society during the year past — the former during 
the year, the latter untU. about August, when sickness compelled him to 
leave his post, both as a Pastor and as an Agent. 

William H. Fish, of Hopedale, has been, through a large part of the 
year, an agent of the Worcester County South Anti-Slavery Society; and, as 
4 



26 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 

such, should be named here, both as a true and faithfiil helper of the 
cause, and also as Agent of a Society -which is in every sense auxihary 
to this. 

In addition to the above Agents, the Society has had the services, during 
the year, of its General Agent, Samuel May, Jr. Upon him mainly devolves 
the duty of arranging the Annual and Special Meetings of this Society, and 
of its Auxiliaries, and of the meetings held, and lectures given, by its several 
Agents. He has, also, attended many County and other meetings during 
the year, whenever circumstances seemed to require it, and other duties 
permitted. A considerable portion of the General Agent's time, for two or 
three years past, having been required for business of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society, arrangements have been made by which it may be so appro- 
priated. 

Nor must it be omitted, in this connection, to speak of the return to his 
native land, after a five years' sojourn in the old world, of our much-esteemed 
and faithful friend, William Wells Brown. Reaching this country late 
in September, his first public act was to attend the Semi- Annual Meeting of 
the American Anti-Slavery Society, held at Syracuse, N. Y., SeiJtember 29th 
and 30th. A few weeks after, he accepted an appointment from the Amer- 
ican Anti- Slavery Society as a Lecturing Agent, and has ever since been 
laboring in its behalf. These labors have been, in part, in New York, New 
Jersey, and Pennsylvania; but having been mostly in New England — 
chiefly in the State of Rhode Island — there is an additional propriety in 
mentioning them in this Statement. It has given an unalloyed pleasure to 
Mr. Brown's many personal friends, and to the friends of the Anti-Slavery 
cause, to see him once more amongst us, and to hail him as a sharer in our 
work. 

We cannot pass without a cordial and grateful acknowledgment, the 
services which, in different places, in and out of New England, have been 
rendered to the cause by Lucy Stone*. Formerly, and for many years, one 
of its most earnest, devoted, and efficient advocates, she has given herself, for 
the last year or two, mainly to another cause, in which, as a woman and a 
true friend to humanity, she has felt a deep and natural interest. This, 
while it has withdrawn from the Anti-Slavery cause much of that direct 
attention and service which she had been wont to render, has not lessened 
the interest she feels in it, nor wholly deprived us of her direct and most 
welcome cooperation. It need not be said that all her words and deeds are, 
in a high and noble sense, Anti- Slavery. And we know that, in every posi- 
tion, and however employed, she will ever be acting with her old associates 
and friends for the redemption of the American Slave. 

The fi-equent labors of Mr. Garrison and of Wendell Phillips in the 
Society's behalf — their readiness to aid in sustaining its meetings, and those 
of the County Societies, whenever possible for them to do so, demand our 
acknowledgment, and are entitled to our best and warmest thanks. 

The two Special Meetings of the Society, held on the Fourth of July, at 
the Grove in Framingham, and on the First of August, in the Grove in 
Abington, were most numerously attended, and most happy in their effects. 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 27 

The utterances at both -were, as the times required, of the boldest and most 
searching character, as the reports of them, made at the time, testify ; but 
bold and thorough as they were, they were entirely sustained by the judg- 
ment and sjTupathies of the numerous hearers which had thronged together 
from far and near, to hear and participate. In addition to the speakers 
whose names have become more familiar to An ti- Slavery ears and hearts, 
we had the pleasure, on the Fourth of July, to welcome Heniiy D. Thokeau 
to the public advocacy of our cause ; while at Abington, we had the hearty 
support of Rev. Messrs. Stetson, Higginson, and Dall. 

To sustain our Agents, and carry on the necessary operations of the Soci- 
ety, we need hardly say, demands not only the liberal donations of all its 
friends, but something more — even a spirit of self-sacrifice and self-denial 
for the cause's sake, Avhich shall impel us to greater exertions, to more 
cheerful labors, than ever before. 

The pledges made at the Annual Meeting, a year since, have nearly all 
been redeemed. Some, however, are still unpaid, and are now fully due. 
"With all these, however, and the contributions made, from time to time, at 
local meetings, the operations of the Society are greatly restricted, from the 
want of the means necessary to sustain them. And here we must not omit 
to thank the many friends who, by theii' hospitality to our Agents, and by 
their aidmg them from place to place, do much to lighten the Society's 
burdens. With the Society's means, it has done what it could ; yet how 
very little in comparison with what reeds to be done, and we should do ! 
Not an Agent has this Societj' — representing as it docs in part the Aboli- 
tionists of all New England — sent, during the year, into Vermont. One 
only has visited, and that for not a long period. New Hampshire and Maine. 
With the aid of the American Society, Rhode Island has been better culti- 
vated, but still the \vork there is only commenced. Connecticut is almost 
unvisited ; and sorely needs the warning cry of the genuine Anti-Slavery 
gospel. For at least half of the yeJir, on the average, we have been com- 
pelled to spare even our few Agents for the far wider field in the great West. 
It would be quite within the most moderate bounds to say that at least ten 
Agents should be continually at work in every one of our New England 
States; for "it is high time they awaked out of their sleep," and only 
the living voice of faithful instruction and rebuke can, under God, awake 
them. 

The past year was a momentous one to our cause, and was a long stride 
towards the ultimate downfall and ruin of the Nation. It was a sad year to 
aU who prize liberty, and whose hearts yearn for the deliverance of the poor 
and the oppressed. The passage of the Nebraska Bill — full of fraud and 
knavery, originating with and passed by Northern hypocrites and traitors -r- 
signalizcd the triumph of the Slave Power over Freedom and her friends. 
Then followed hard that spectacle — so ignominious, so disgraceful to Massa- 
chusetts, so damning to Boston — the seizure of Anthony Burns, in our 
streets, for no crime, (though on the lying pretext of one,) his mock trial 
before a cowardly Commissioner, and his delivery to his brutal Virginia 
owner. It was noticeable to some who attended those Court-room scenes, how 



28 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855- 

seldom (if at all) the Commissioner or the prosecutmg Attorney ventured to 
look upon the face of their poor helpless victim. In their dying hours, the 
agonized face of that suffering man AviU look out of the heU of Slavery, into 
■which they forced him, and ■will mock -when their fear cometh. Then, too, 
■we saw the hateful sight of a Massachusetts court-house, filled with ignorant 
men of foreign birth, but wearing the Army uniform of the United States, 
driving out Massachusetts men from its precincts, and aiding in sending a 
native-born American into hopeless Slavery. We saw a Mayor, who 
had declared that none of the city Police should be allowed to lift a linger 
to help reduce a man to Slavery, with falsehood, and meanness, and shame- 
less alacrity, taking the lead in the kidnapping. We have seen other sights, 
so incredibly base and mean, that the futvire reader of history will refuse to 
believe the tale. We have seen the military companies of Boston, composed 
of men, young and old, brought up in its schools and churches, and supposed 
to be, the most of them, decent men — men claiming to be the very elite of 
Boston society — not only ready to help enslave a man and shoot down all 
who might befriend him, but grovelling before the General Government 
afterwards, impatient for their pay! Shame, foul shame, on the Colonels 
and Captains, the Officers and Privates of Boston, who would do the work 
of Guinea traders, kidnappers, man-stealers, (sinners whom God dooms, and 
every honest man loathes,) and then receive the gold and the silver, the 
price of blood, "the price of him that was valued," and put it in their 
treasuries ! The Boston of fifty years ago cries out in judgment on the men 
of this generation, and spews them out of its mouth. We have seen, too, 
the recreant and degraded Boston of 1854, re-elect to his official position the 
Mayor who had brought this new disgrace upon the citj' ; re-electing him, 
too, through a party which professes, in an especial manner, to vindicate 
the rights of the humblest born upon our soil. 

To crown this evil work, and to seal their own disgrace, the United States 
Court, sitting in this city, caused Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, 
Thomas W. IIigginson, Martin Stowell, and Samuel T. Proudman, to 
be indicted as accessories to the so-called Burns Riot ; and required them 
to give bonds to appear and take their trial in March next. We have every 
reason to be confident that tliis act of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis, and Dis- 
trict Attorney Benjamin F. Hallett, is regarded with disapprobation and 
censure by the great mass of the intelligent and respectable people even of 
conservative Boston ; while, through the State at large, it meets with undis- 
guised contempt. We cannot, of course, predict the result, but our belief 
is, that neither of these gentlemen can, at this day, and in Massachusetts, 
be found guilty on such a charge. And we are very sure that, be the resiilt 
what it may, it will tend to the greater honor and fame of the parties 
accused, and will lift them to a higher place in the confidence and affection 
of all the true friends of freedom. 

But we would "thank God and take courage" that even these terrible 
wrongs — these apparent defeats of freedom, have not been without their 
compensation. Thousands have been aroused to understand the true char- 
acter of Slavery, who before were wholly indifferent. Cheated, over-reached. 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 29 

and insulted themselves, in their bargain and compromise with the South, 
they learn at last the meaning of these Southern aggressions, and begin to 
perceive their object. May their awakening not be too late ! 

The feeling of indignation which so extensively followed the violation of 
the Missouri Compromise, (in the passage of the Nebraska Bill) seriously 
alarmed some of our Northern politicians ; but, far more, some of our 
Northern Divines ! "With an almost despairing shriek, two of them have 
rushed to the rescue of Slavery, resolved, if possible, to suppress and anni- 
hilate Northern conscience and Northern sensibility. Behold their wicked 
and Heaven-daring works ! Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord's Pamphlet to prove 
the scriptural, and moral, and lawful character of Slavcholding, and Rev. 
Dr. Nehemiaii Adams's South-Side View of Slavery ! The orthodox head 
of Dartmouth College, and the orthodox pastor of a Boston Church, united 
in the goodly and so appropriate (!) work, of reconciling the Northern mind 
and heart to the existence and growth of "the sum of all villanies ! " Let 
them strive ; — they "kick against the pricks ; " they "fight against God." 

It would be unpardonable not to make mention of a new instrumentality 
which, during the last autumn, was put m operation by the American Anti- 
Slavery Society, viz., the issuing of brief and a'oly-written Anti-Slavery 
Tracts, for gratuitous distribution. This work was undertaken by the 
American Society, but the business of stereotyx^ing and printing was done 
in this city. Four Tracts — on the United States Constitution ; on the 
extent to which the Wliite Population are held in Slavery in the Southern 
States ; on Colonization ; and on the Moral and Religious Effects of Slavery 
both upon the Slave and Slaveholder — have been written, stereotyped, and 
printed. Of these Tracts, 30,000 have been printed, and 10,000 more will 
soon be issued, making a total of 40,000 Tracts, or 360,0C0 pages. To meet 
the cost of these, a special fund was created, to which the contributions 
hitherto have been about $1,600. This sum needs to be greatlj' increased. 
The Tracts have been sent to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Penn- 
sylvania, as well as to all of the New England States, and very many calls for 
them are still unanswered. These we hope soon to supply. Other Tracts 
are in preparation, and some are promised for which many are anxiously 
looking. 

The General Agent of this Society is also its Corresponding Secretary, and 
as such, is called upon to conduct a somewhat extensive correspondence, 
both at home and abroad. It is quite impossible, in the limits which must 
be observed for this Statement, to go into the details of this correspondence. 
We have, as you know, many noble and zealous co-workers throughout our 
land, — would to God they were multiplied a thousand-fold. Abroad, the 
friends of our cause and of our Society are increasing in numbers, are stead- 
fast in their faith, and unwearied in their labors of love. The blessing 
of those who are " ready to perish " is theirs. To one circumstance con- 
nected with the foreign correspondence allusion may be made, because of 
the illustraiion it affords of Southern manners, as well as of Southern char- 
acter. Some friends in Edinburgh, Scotland, were very desirous that the re- 
cent able and dispassionate Scottish Remonstrance against American Slavery, 



30 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 

signed by 40,000 mmisters, church members, and others, and addressed, in 
a courteous manner, and in a spirit of true Christian fidelity, to the People 
of the United States, should be published in some of the leading newspapers 
of the Southern States. These- Edinburgh friends addressed a letter to the 
"writer of this, enclosmg a copy of the Remonstrance, and sending a sum of 
money to pay for its insertion in such Southern papers. Though having 
little faith that any Southern newspaper would either dare, or desire, to 
print a line calling the Christian character of Slavery in question — the 
writer of this addressed a courteous note to the Editor of the Richmond 
Enquirm; sending a copy of the Remonstrance, and requesting its insertion 
as an advertisement. No notice was taken of the letter. After waiting sev- 
eral weeks, and receiving no answer, a similar note was addressed to the 
Washington Union. A copy of the latter note was preserved, and is as 
follows : — 

Boston, January 13, 1855. 
To the Editors of the Union, Washington, D. C. 

Gentlemen: — I have lately received from Edinburgh, Scotland, a 
"Friendly Remonstrance on the subject of Slavery," addressed to the People 
of the United States of America. The original is signed by some 40,000 
persons of Scotland. Tlie senders have requested me to obtain its publication 
in some Southern journal or joui-nals, if possible ; and have forwarded to me 
a sum of money to pay for such publication. 

The enclosed is a copy of the Remonstrance. Will you give it an inser- 
tion in the Unions If you see tit so to do — on receiving from you a copy 
of the paper containing it, I will immediately forward to you the above 
named sura. 

If you decline to insert it, please give me a reply to that effect, and much 
oblige 

Yours, in the hope of a truly free country, 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., 

No. 21 Cornhill, Boston. 

To this note, also, no anstocr has been received. The upholders of Slavery 
of course cannot be expected to observe the common courtesies of social life. 
A natural shame, also, woiild deter them from the confession that they dare 
not listen even to a " Friendly Remonstrance " on their great sin against man 
and against God, — much less be the veliiclc of conveying such remonstrance 
to thousands of others, some of whom might be touched by its ajipeals, 
perhaps even "pricked in their hearts," so as to ask, "Men and brethren, 
what shall we do .-" " 

Although it is not the object of this report to speak of things transpiring 
beyond the borders of New England, yet we must give expression to our 
feelings of high satisfaction in the progress our cause is making on the other 
side of the water. The Anti-Slavery Conference held at Manchester, Eng- 
land, on the first of August last, was a most highly respectable assemblage, 
and an important event in our history. A large number of gentlemen, from 
various parts of Great Britain and Ireland, composed the Confer^ce. There 
was also present, as a faithful friend and able representative of American 
Anti-Slavery, Parkek Pillsbury. The Conference passed a series of strong 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. ^ 

and effective resolution?, and among them one of warm sympathy -svith the 
American Anti-Slavery Society, commending it to the confidence and support 
of all who desire the abolition of Slavery. Near the end of November, 
another Anti-Slavery Conference, called by the Committee of the Britisii 
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, was held in London. It was well 
attended, and several ladies were recognized and admitted as delegates. Our 
friend, Mr. Pillsbuky, was present, also, at this Conference, by the courte- 
ous invitation of its Secretary, Mr. Chamerovzow. This Conference, by a 
majority, refused an expression of sjanpathy to the American Anti-Slavery 
Society, or to so much as recognize its existence, and struck from its resolu- 
tions all but the most general reference to American Abolitionists. That 
Society asks no favors, at home or abroad, and surely had no reason to 
expect sjTnpathy from men who, belonging to the British and Foreign Anti- 
Slavery Society, have been its most insidious and bitter enemies for fifteen 
years. But it was a question for those men to decide for themselves, whether 
they could honorably withhold a resolution of sympathy and regard from a 
Society, against which aU that is vile and corrupt, all that is malignant, 
sectarian, and prescriptive, all that is oppressive and pro-slavery in our land, 
has been always, and perseveringly, and most bitterly arrayed. Mr. Pills - 
BURY, though weakened by his severe illness, made a most able defence of 
the American Anti- Slavery Society, and demonstrated in the very ears of the 
Committee of the British and Foreign Anti- Slavery Society, how unworthy 
and ungenerous their course, and that of their late Secretary, Mr. Scoble, 
had been, and how many obstacles they had tlirown in the way of the aboli- 
tion of Slavery, by their own religious fellowship and alliance with some of 
the worst Pro-Slavery sects in America. Mr. Pillsbury established a new 
claim to the confidence, esteem, and love of American AboKtionists, by his 
manly and judicious course at the London Conference. 

Nor wOl we forget to bear oiir testimony to the good work done by the 
London Anti-Slavery Advocate. With great ability and good judgment, 
clearness of moral vision, excellent spii-it, and undeviating fidelity, this jour- 
nal has maintained the cause of uncompromising Anti-Slavery. It is now 
in the third year of its existence. The best thanks of all the friends of true 
freedom are due to those who, at great personal sacrifice of time, labor, and 
money, have sustained it so long and so well. 

We bring this paper to a close — already too long — by calling to our 
minds those of our associates — true and faithful spirits — who, during the 
jjast year, have been called from earth, and have "ceased from their labors" 
here. Among them we will mention but one — John M. Fisk, of West 
Brookfield. The son of an orthodox clergyman, and brought up in a rigid 
conformity to sectarian ideas and limits, the Anti- Slavery cause came to him 
as a severe trial and test of his humanity, and his reverence for God. It 
was a struggle, but he came out from it the victor. Compelled to choose 
between fidelity to God and to conscience on the one side, and the favor and 
fellowship of a powerful but Pro-Slavery church on the other, he did not 
hesitate, but boldly and nobly declared for Freedom, for Truth, and for the 
Downfall of Oppression of every kind. In the long contest he was called to 



32 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1855. 

wage with the Pro-Slavery church hi his town, ho maintained liis position 
with singular ability and skill, and with entire success. For many years he 
served the Anti-Slavery cause with a spii-it of most exemplary devotedncss, 
with a rare judgment, and with a large charity to all who differed. As 
President, or Secretary, or Treasurer of the Worcester Coimty South Anti- 
Slavery Society, (for at different times he held all these offices,) he was the 
best officer that Society ever had — as we think all its members will cheer- 
fully agree. He was long a Vice-President of this Society, and one who, in 
every position, won the confidence and respect of the friends of the cause. 
A painful and long-protracted disease deprived us of his active cooperation 
for several of his last years ; but his heart was right and true to the end. 
His body was taken for funeral services into the identical church which, in 
the vigor of his life and in obedience to the voice of God in his soul, he had 
renounced and come out from, because of its determined participation in the 
sin of enslaving millions of their fellow men. In that house, a Pro-Slavery 
minister, and one who, within twenty-four hours, refused so much as to read 
a notice of a lecture by one who had been an American Slave, went through 
a service in mockery of all true religion, meanly taking advantage of the 
death-closed lips of our friend, to beseech the people of that church to forgive 
the deceased his sin of causing dissensions among them, and now that he was 
dead, to forget him, his example, liis rebukes of their faithlessness, and his 
labors for the oppressed, as fast as possible — burying all in his yet open 
grave ; for, if not the exact words, this was the substance and spirit of them. 
But the people of that town and vicinity will not forget John M. Fisk. 
They knew his truthful, disinterested, benevolent, honorable character too 
well to bury it out of their recollection at the call of a time-serving priest. 
And, for ourselves, we are thankful to have known him, and to have been 
honored by his friendship and fellowship And we rejoice in the belief that 
an unclouded vision now has opened to his eyes, which no disease can dim. 
May his memory be to us a blessed one, and one of the rich inheritances we 
have derived from our noble cause — a cause which brings Freedom to our 
own souls, no less than to the down-trodden Slave. 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., 
General Agent of the Massachusetts Ant i- Slavery Society. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery Society, 1855. 

Tliis meeting convened at the Meionaon Hall, in Boston, Thursday, the 
25th instant, at 10 o'clock, A. M., the President, Fhancis Jackson, in the 
chair. 

A Business Committee was chosen, consisting of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 
Wendell Phillips, Wm. Wells Brown, Stephen S. Foster, Anne W. 
Weston, Nancy L. Howes, Charles L. Remond, Henry C. Wright, and 
Nathaniel H. Whiting. 

Samuel May, Jr. and Wm. H. Fish were appointed Assistant Secretaries. 

Prayer was offered by Wm. H. Fish, of Hopedale. 

The General Agent, Samuel May, Jr., read an encouraging statement of 
the operations of the Society for the past year, giving a brief notice of the 
labors of the various agents employed, and urging the importance of keeping 
many such faithfid servants constantly in ..the field. The action of Boston, 
under the direction of its Mayor and other officers, in the Burns case, was 
plainly and severely, but justly, commented upon, as were also the special 
labors of Rev. Drs. Lord and Nehemiah Adams, in behalf of the endangered 
Despotism. Mr. May's statement concluded with an impressive tribute of 
respect to the late John M. Fisk, of West Brookfield, who had long been a 
faithful friend and officer of the Society. 

On motion of Edmund Quincy, it was Voted, that the Report of Mr. May 
be referred to the Board of Managers for the ensuing year ; but before this 
motion was put, John C. Cluer wished to make a suggestion. 

He regretted that while Mr. May had very justly condemned the men of 
foreign birth who participated in the rendition of Burns, he had neglected to 
mention those Yankee blacklegs of Boston, who were his especial guards. 
Mr. Cluer considered Mayor Smith as the chief of these Boston villains, and 
he desired the fact to be known across the ocean. 

Mr. May replied that he had had no design to exempt any man, American 
or otherwise, from deserved execration, who took part in the delivery of 
Anthony Burns into slavery ; as he thought a glance at his Report would 
show. 

Mr. Quincy's motion was unanimously adopted. 

Mr. Quincy suggested some change in the manner of holding the Annual 
Meeting, as, adopting the method of the American Society, viz : to commence 
with a general meeting, for which the best speakers should be -previously 
5 



34 PROCEEDINGS. 

engaged and prepared, and publicly advertised. The city would thus be 
thoi'oughly notified and aroused. 

G. W. Putnam, of Lynn, objected to having a meeting arranged before- 
hand, thinking it would infringe upon free speech. 

Mr. Garrison commented upon the refusal of the House of Representatives 
to grant the use of the Hall for a single meeting of this Society, and thought 
that, though their chief reason, on the face of it, viz : that it was closed to 
all parties, seemed plaiisible enough, it was somewhat like Herod's require- 
ment that all the children of a certain ago should be destroyed, in order that 
they might be sure to slay the one most objectionable to them, and dangerous 
to their existence. 

Mr. Garrison, chairman of the Business Committee, presented the follow- 
ing resolutions : — 

1. Resolved, That while we rejoice in every indication of an approxima- 
tion, on the part of public men, or of religious or political bodies, to the 
standard of uncompromising abolitionism, and are ever ready to give credit 
to whom credit is due, lor any real service that may be done to the anti- 
slavery cause ; we, nevertheless, feel constiained to admonish all men and all 
parties, that no incidental labor, no partial issue, no struggle against slavchold- 
ing aggressions upon the rights of the ISorth, can be a substitute for the duty 
of seeking the immediate and utter extirpation of the slave system, and sep- 
arating ourselves from all participancy in the guilt thereof. 

2. Besolved, That uistitutions are for men, and not men for institutions ; 
therefore all institutions, whetlicr in Church or State, that cannot exist witli- 
out enslaving men, ought to be, and must be, destroyed. 

Mr. Garrison spoke of the general charge made against Abolitionists, that 
they are uncharitable ; but he believed they were always ready to do justice 
to any man who should do any true anti-slavery work, in whatsoever way 
he might do it. We are contending, however, he said, with a united and 
uncompromising Despotism, and we must be as uncompromising as that. It 
was a good thing to be opi>osed to the Fugitive Slave Law, the Nebra.ska 
Bill, and to give succor to fugitives ; but commendable as these acts are, 
genuine anti-slavery covers broader ground than this ; and those who make 
the charge of uncharitableness shoidd remember that it is not a question of 
charity at all, but of right. Abolitionism, he insisted, is to hate slavery for 
others as we should hate it for ourselves ; and to rejmdiate and oppose what- 
ever upholds slavery. 

Mr. PuiLLiPS said, if we accept any half-way anti-slavery without criti- 
cism, we shall fail to meet the demands of the time. He would acknowledge 
many things as a gain to the anti-slavery cause, that could not be regarded 
as at all an anti-slavery triumph. The iwUtical action needed is not that a 
great deal of ground should lie gone over superlicially, but that some one 
thing should be done thoromjhly.. He asked for tlie result of the partial anti- 
slavery action of the country. It is the Fugitive Slave Bill, and the Nebras- 
ka Bill, and it w-ill, by and by, be Cuba. Under its influence, the country 
was lost for freedom ; the Slave Power has the control, and Senators and 
Kepresentatives can only ineffectually protest. He insisted, therefore, that 
the great need is an example of anti-slavery ; — a commonwealth or a city 



PROCEEDINGS. 85 

that should be a model for the world. The true policy is to keep before the 
country our ultimate ends, and tliis is the only method of success. The 
question is not -whether Mr. A. or B. is a great man, an eloquent man, but 
whether he is an uncompromising Abolitionist, llcform movements are 
necessarily aggressive, and they should draw up every man's method to the 
ring-bolt of a rigid scrutiny. When our anti-slavery enterprise shall become 
tame and compromi.sing, it should be put out of the way. 

James N. Buffum, of Lynn, expressed his approbation of the first resolu- 
tion, and thought that if the sentiment and philosophy of our movement 
were known, they would find a wide response among the people. He referred 
to Frederick Douglass, who had lately been on a lecturing visit to Lynn, 
when he undertook to represent Garrisonianism, but most shamefully 7nis- 
rcpresented it. He wislied to protest against such labors of Mr. Douglass, 
and to bear his own testimony in favor of uncompromising anti-slavery. 

Mr. Putnam attempted an explanation of Mr. Douglass's lecture some- 
what different from Mr. Bui^fum's, and in defence of Mr. D. He also spoke 
in reprobation of the late Manchester (England) Anti- Slavery Conference, 
for refusing a hearing to Joseph Barker. 

John C. Cluer said that Joseph Barker was put down at the Manchester 
meeting on account of his religious and philanthropic views, strongly, carnr 
estly, and eloijuently expressed. Tlic men who prevented his speaking were 
not lovers of universal freedom. But he himself had stuck by old organized 
anti-slavery in this country, and the Luther leaders of it, because he had 
always found them loyal to liberty imder all circumstances. He knew Mr. 
Garrison in England, and knew liim to be as true there as at home ; and 
he clierished the highest regard for both him and Mr. Phillips. But he 
loved the cause they represented better than he loved them. 

On motion of Mr. May, Committees on Finance, and upon the Officers of 
the Society for the ensuing year, were appointed, as follows : — 

On Finance — Leavis Ford, ELnuiDGE Sprague, Keuken H. Obeb, Sallie 
HoLLEY, and Samuel Dyer. 

On Nomination of Officers — Edmund Quinct, of Dedham ; Ebenezer D. 
Draper, of Milford ; Briggs Arnold, of Abington ; John Cleme.nt, of Town- 
send ; Joshua G. Dodge, of West Cambridge ; William Asiiby, of Newbury- 
port ; Elias Kichards, of Weymouth. 

Mr. Garrison, in speaking of Frederick Douglass, simply said that Mr. 
Douglass was in such a state of mind as unfitted him to represent the views 
which he (Mr. Garrison) held on any subject. As to the case of Joseph 
Barker, at the Manchester Conference, he thought that Mr. B. was not 
prevented from speaking in conse<iucnce of his peculiar views, but because he 
was not in order, according to British ruling in such cases. This Mr. Gar- 
rison felt himself bound in justice to say. 

AViLLiAM AVells Brown coincided with Mr. Garrison's view of Mr. Bar- 
ker's case, and as he was present, he deemed it well to state liis convictions 
on the subject. The floor belonged to Samuel R. Ward, and the chair sim- 
ply so decided. The meeting would not have refused Mr. Barker a hearing 
on the ground of his supposed heretical views, and did so solely to maintain 



36 PROCEEDINGS. 

a point of order. Tliis he said was the view of the matter which George 
Thompson took. 

Mr. Putnam had got his impression of the case of Mr. Baekeu, principally 
from Mr. Baekeu's own letter, and Mr. Gauuison's comments on it ; but he 
was glad to hear Mr. Biiown's explanation, though not entirely satisfactory 
to him. 

Afternoon. The President in the chair. 

Mr. Garrison read the resolutions presented to the meeting in the morning. 

Francis Jackson, in the absence of tlie Treasurer, Mr. Philbrick, read 
the Treasurer's Keport, as audited ; from which it appears that the receipts 
of the past year were $8,735.27. Expenditures, $8,066.77. 

Voted, To accept the report and publish it. 

Mr. Garrison thought that, notwithstanding all the labors of the Aboli- 
tionists, there are few who comprehend the magnitude of the anti-slavery 
movement. This movement at lirst was simply in behalf of the three mil- 
lions of slaves in our land ; but now it is far wider in its scope and object. 
The slaveholding spirit is the universal spirit of the land, therefore it is that 
the Government and the Church are pro-slavery. The first thmg to be un- 
derstood, then, is human nature and the rights of man ; — man's superiority 
to all institutions. And this is what the anti-slavery movement, in the Prov- 
idence of God, is emphatically and impressively teacliing the nation. What- 
ever institution outlaws men, we must so treat it that it shall outlaw us too. 
This thought he enlarged upon in his usually searching and effective manner. 

Henry C. Wright responded to Mr. Garrison's remarks, and said he 
would belong to no institution that outlawed man, but would labor for the 
overthrow of all such institutions. The great object of the anti-slavery 
movement is to rescue man from the thraldom of institutions. These views 
Mr. Wright enlarged upon for a short time, and was hstened to with atten- 
tion and evident interest. 

Wm. Wells Brown said that the Slave Power had, from the first, used all 
its resources to sustain itself and its reputation for respectability. Its policy 
has been to bziy up whatever stood in its way — politicians and ministers es- 
pecially. He instanced Dr. Nehemiah Adams as an illustration of the way 
in which the South buys up the ministers. 

Mr. Brown thought he knew about as much of slavery as Dr. Adams, and 
could give quite as accurate a view of the subject. He had been a slave 
himself for twenty years, and he would undertake to examine some of the 
Rev. gentleman's positions and assertions. This work of criticism Mr. Brown 
did up much to the interest and satisfaction of his hearers, and to the detri- 
ment of his dissected reverence. Had Dr. Adams been present, we think he 
would have felt himself to be a very insignificant personage before this grad- 
uate of the plantation, and we could wish him no gveater justice than to have 
to meet Mr. Brown on the anti-slavery platform. Mr. Brown closed with 
some interesting remarks on the anti-slavery sentiment of Great Britain, and 
upon the importance of laboring to strip slavery of its social and religious 
character 



rKOCEEDINGS. 37 

Mr. Garrison, from the Business Committee, presented the following res- 
olutions : — 

3. Resolved, That as even the atrocious Fugitive Slave Law was overruled, 
by Divine Providence, to accomplish an effective anti-slavery work, so the 
misstatements of fact, the perversions of reasoning, the eulogies of slavery, 
the libels against freedom, and the caricatures of rehgion, contained in the 
Rev. Neuemiau Adams's " South-Side View of Slavery," may be expected 
to produce a similar result, and, in that view, are commended to the. thorough 
and attentive perusal of every Abolitionist. 

4. Resolved, That those who remain inactive, for fear of the " consequen- 
ces" of the abolition of slavery, may profitably note, in Dr. Adams's hints 
at the desirableness of introducing slavery at the North, and of re-establish- 
ing the foreign slave-trade, some consequences of apostacy from freedom. 

5. Resolved, That those who have doubted the testimony of anti-slavery 
lecturers, that the clergy are the chief bulwark of slavery, strongest in oppo- 
sition to those who are laboring for its removal, and farthest of the whole 
community from favoring radical refonn in the case of popular sins, may find 
in this book one more item of e\adcnce on those points. 

G. Resolved, That the open and thorough falsehood of Dr. Adams's pre- 
tence, that his course of action and general influence, public and private, 
before his thi'ee months' visit at the South, had been against slavery, is an 
absolute bar to the favorable construction of some of his critics, that, in writ- 
ing and publishing this book, he had been candid and well-meaning, though 
not intelligent, and had shown weakness rather than wickedness. 

7. Resolved, That the vmimpaired good standing of President Lord, Dr. 
Adams, and Dr. Elagden, with the clergymen and laymen of their sect, and 
their continued recejition as competent teachers of ])icty and morality in 
their respective parishes since their recent advocacy of slavery, give us re- 
newed evidence of the hollowness and falsehood of the popular religion, and 
the need of replacing it by true Christianity. 

Stephen S. Foster thought one of the objects of the annual meeting 
should be to lay oxit business for the future. He would therefore lay before 
his hearers a plan of operations, and the motives in which they should be 
adopted. He thought the first need is enthusiasm, without which we could 
do little or nothing. This point Mr. Foster enlarged upon with an enthu- 
siasm that seemed to diffuse itself through the audience, and to be a perfect 
illustration of the truth of his position. Eut he thought that not only en- 
thusiasm, but some new form of an ti- slavery action, should be presented to 
the people, at this crisis. He behoved the time had come in which all men 
should be denied the possession of an anti-slavery character who support the 
United States Government. He acknowledged that he liimself had sinned 
in tliis matter, havmg recognized such men as Charles Sumner, and John 
P. Hale, as abolitionists ; but he could do so no more. This declaration of 
Mr. Foster elicited a considerable and earnest discussion about Mr. Sum- 
neb's position, and the character of the United States Constitution ; in the 
midst of which, the meeting adjourned to 7 o'clock, P. M. 



Evening. The President in the Chair. 

George W. Putnam commenced the services of the evening with an anti- 
slavery song. 



38 PROCEEDINGS. 

S. S. Foster resumed the remarks commenced by him in the afternoon : — 
As to Mr. Sumner's character as a man, which was imdcr discussion in the 
afternoon, he was willing to concede all in reference to that, that his warm- 
est friends could claim for him ; but his position as a professed anti-slavery 
man, he felt himself under obligation to oppose. He supposed Mr. Sumner 
to hold, in the main, the popular views of the Constitution ; hence, in cairy- 
ing out these views, he must of necessity occupy the position of a pro-slavery 
man. His saying that he is an abolitionist, does not, of course, make him 
so ; for, if he stands pledged to put to death men who rise in insurrection to 
secure their liberty, he is as much a slaveholder, in that respect, as ever was 
Henry Clay. In answer to a question from a hearer, Mr. Foster said he 
would have such a government for his brethren as he would liave for him- 
self ; and he would never, God helping him, hold up his right hand to swear 
allegiance to a government, the worst of whose laws he would not willingly 
have executed on himself and his family. He believed too, that the great 
work of abolitionists, for the coining year, should be the overtlirow of the 
American Government, and that Free Soilers should be rebuked and de- 
nounced for their support of it. He urged the importance of forming a new 
political party, on the basis of the Constitution of Massachusetts, wholly 
ignoring the Constitution of the United States. 

He said, that such a Congress as the Americans have, was not a body for 
an honest abolitionist to be connected with. Gerrit Smith, he said, tried 
it, but soon got sick of the business of legislating Avith the pirates, and very 
properly turned his back upon them. 

Mr. Foster also gave an account of his recent trial in Worcester, wliich 
was listened to with much interest ; and closed his remarks with offering the 
following resolution : — 

Resolved, That the time has come, when the friends of freedom who be- 
lieve in political action can render essential service to our cause by the organ- 
ization of a political party based upon the State Constitutions, and ignoring 
the Federal Government, thereby presenting, in a tangible form, the com- 
mencement of a political revolution, which is essential to the overthrow of 
slavery, and the success of which is sure to be followed with that glorious 
result. 

Mr. Phillips being now rapturously applauded as he entered the house, 
and called upon for a speech, said he had nothing special to say, but he had 
just been listening to a ffreat speech from Mr. Emerson — one of the greatest 
and bravest ever made in the city of Boston, or in New England. Mr. Emer- 
son, he said, had showed himself to be a man, whom literary fame had 
never tempted to a wrong, and whom the opinions of his fellow citizens 
never fettered. Mr. Phillips then passed to the subject of Slavery, and 
was more than ordinarily eloquent. He hoped, he said, we should yet 
have a Massachusetts, and we might have, if we only had a dozen clean 
men to make it. He thought that, in order for Mr. Sumner and his 
friends to accomplish the needed work, they must take substantially Lysan- 
dek Spooner's view of the Constitution — .such a view as would not only 



PROCKKDINGS. 39 

unseat Franklin Pieuce, but Chief Justice Taney. This eloquent speech 
he closed by calling upon liis hearers to exert themselves to save at least one 
State from the general wreck, to bear aloft the true standard, aiid lead tlic 
way to Freedom. 

Adjourned to 10 o'clock, Friday. 



FETDAY. 

Francis Jackson, President, in the chair, and a good audience in attend- 
ance. 

Wm. H. Fish offered some remarks against tl.e spirit of violence which 
manifests itself in the anti-slavery movement. » 

George \V. Putnam spoke briefly in reply to Mr. Fisu, advocating war 
and violence, under certain circumstances. 

Abbt K. Foster said, the great thing needed is to get the people ready to 
do anti-slavery work ; and when they get ready to do it, they will, of course, 
do it in their own way. Eut very few arc up to the point of fightuig for 
freedom, if they have the disposition ; and she did not believe that even "Wor- 
cester was prepared to protect the slave by force of arms. We ought, then, 
to go to work and get up such a public sentiment as will itself give safety to 
the fugitive. Agitation should be our motto ; and this was our work, which 
work she described in an unusually interesting and impressive manner, that 
held the attention of her audience to the end. Her speech was one of the 
noblest of the whole meeting, and made a deep moral impression. 

Mr. May spoke of the necessity of a hearty co-operation of all the friends 
of the Society in contributions to sustain it during the ensuing year. 

The Finance Committee proceeded to take pledges and donations to the 
Society. 

Ilev. Jajies Freeman Clarke, on rising to speak, said, he was once in a 
Water-Curc establishment, in which he noticed one peculiarity, which was, 
that just before they were getting well, they were worse. A crisis preceded 
cure. So it might be in the anti-slavery movement. Certain it is, that many 
bad things were just now coming upon the surface. Some of these bad 
things he had in his pocket — Dr. Adams's " South-Side View," and Presi- 
dent LoRij's Letter of Inquiry to Christian Ministers. When such things, 
he said, were coming upon the surface, it was a good sign — a sign that there 
is something good near at hand. When we see men putting up bulwarks 
and making preparations for defence, it is a sure sign that their citadel is 
thought to be in danger. Anti-slavery men ought, therefore, to " thank God 
and take courage." 

Mr. Clarke did not wish to see the Union dissolved, but he preferred dis- 
solution to the continuance of slavery. His brief speech was a good one, and 
an acceptable offering to the cause. 

The following resolution, from the Business Committee, was presented by 
Mr. May : — 



40 PROCKEDINGS. 



8. Resolved, That wc desire to express, in this public gathering of the abo- 
litionists of-Massachusetts, our profound appreciation of the rare sagacity, 
fidelity, and clear-sightedness of our friend, Pahkeu Pillsbury, during his 
tour through Great Britain — our sincere sympathy in his severe illness, and 
our deep gratitude for his constant, unintcrmitted efforts to serve the slave, 
shield his best friends from slander and misrei:)rcsentation, and turn the eyes 
of British abolitionists upon the only efficient method to emancipate him ; 
and we recommend Mr. Pillsbury to the entire confidence of our British 
friends, as one whom observation, long experience, constant presence in the 
anti-slavery field during many years, insight into the philosophy of our cause, 
and disinterested fidelity to it, have made a most reliable witness on every 
part of the anti-slavery movement. 



Afternoon. Francis Jackson in the Chair. 

Henry C. Wright, in commencing the speaking in the afternoon, said, 
that he always found it a great help, in the presentation of the anti-slavery 
enterprise, to have a few well-defined axioms ; and he proceeded to state 
some of these axioms, and to comment upon them. 

On behalf of Mr. Garrison, (who was confined to his house by a sudden 
illness,) Mr. Wright presented the following resolutions : — 

Whereas, The Rev. Drs. Lord, Adams, and Blagden, profess to believe 
that the institution of chattel slavery, as it exists in this country, is sanc- 
tioned both by " natural and revealed religion ; " that the slaves are in a desir- 
able condition, kindly cared for and protected by their masters, and requir- 
ing no special s^inpathy or aid to deliver tlicm from the authority exercised 
over them ; and that tlic slaveholders, instead of being guilty of injustice, 
cruelty, and immorality, are exemplary citizens, and, in many cases, excel- 
lent Christians ; therefore, 

9. Resolved, That it is to be deeply regretted, that those reverend Doctors 
cannot be transferred to Southern plantations, to fill the places of those noble 
spirits in bondage, whose aspirations are continually for freedom, and who 
are only waitmg for the first favoi able opportunity to assert their manhood, 
by flight to Canada. 

10. Resolved, That an exhibition of these impious vindicators of the " sum 
of all villainies," on the auction-block, at public vendue, to be knocked down 
to the highest bidder, — or their subjection to the lash of the slave-driver, 
or the seizure of their wives and children for the pm-poses of lust and i obbery, 
never again to meet on earth, — would in one moment purge their mor.'d vis- 
ion, enlighten their understanding, and satisfy them, beyond cavil, that 
slavery is from beneath, and that no apologist or defender thereof could, by 
any possibility, be a follower of Jesus Christ, or rationally hope for s;dva- 
tion, without thorough repentance. 

Whereas, Southern Slavery, by its own code, and not by any abuses, is the 
abolition of the marriage institution, and, therefore, a volcano of lewdness, 
in full and constant operation — is the denial of the right of its victims, 
under terrible penalties, to learn to read the name of their Heavenly Father, 
or to " search the Scriptures," in accordance with the injunction of his Be- 
loved Son — is a classification of those who are made " a little lower than 
the angels," with cattle, swine, and other articles of merchandize — is the 
annihilation of all personal and individual rights — is the desecration of all 
the sacred relations of life, recognizing neither father nor mother, neither 



PROCEEDINGS. 4l 

husband nor wife, neither parent nor child * — and is, finally, in the fullest 
and most awful sense, the exaltation of the tyrannical master '" above all that 
is called God," to the utter extinction, in the minds of his victims, of all 
sense of moral accountability to the Final Judge of quick and dead ; there- 
fore, 

11. Resolved, That, making (as they do,) no issue with the slave code, 
and endeavoring to counteract tlie humane efforts of those who are striving 
to overthrow the slave system by " the sword of the spirit which is the word 
of God," the Rev. Drs. Lord, Adams, and Blagden, give the clearest evi- 
dence to the world, that their spirits are impure, that their reverence for 
the Bible is a mockery, that they are yet unable to discriminate between a 
man and a sheep, that they are the unblushing enemies of freedom and 
equality, and that they ought to be " hissed out of their places " as the pro- 
fessed ministers of Him who came to " preach deliverance to the captive, and 
the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound." And let all the 
people say, Amen ! 

Stephen S. Foster expressed his gratitixde for the friendly criticism of 
which he was the subject in the morning. He justified that criticism as 
being legitimate to the anti-slavery platform. But he thought he could 
defend any course of action he had pursued and recommended, as consistent. 
On the same principle that Mr. Fish held him (Mr. Foster) amenable to his 
professed non-resistance principle, he held professed fighting abolitionists 
amenable to their principles. Mr. Foster argued this point in his usual logi- 
cal manner. He also spoke at length on various phases of the anti-slavery 
movement, and frequently called forth great applause from the audience. 

The Committee appointed to nominate Officers of the Society, made a 
Report. [See Officers of the Society, page 21.] 

James N. Buffum thought, in reference to Mr. Foster's jilan, that it is a 
dangerous thing to go into a political party ; and he hoped, therefore, that 
the Massachusetts Society would still maintain its original position, and con- 
tinue to labor chiefly to remould public sentiment. 

Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the Romish 
Church, in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the Catholic Church is 
thoroughly an ti- slavery — as thoroughly as even his friend Foster. Various 
Popes, he said, had condemned slavery, and called upon the faithful every- 
where, in the name of Almighty God, to put it entirely away from them. 
Hence he considered Archbishop Hughes, and all the professed Catholics of 
America, who sympathize with, and aid the Slave power, as excommunicated 
heretics. He thought himself about the only representative of the true 
Catholic Church in this country. He took the highest anti-slavery ground, 
and was listened to with much interest. 



* In the language of Rev. Dr. Breckexridge, in the Kentucky Convention a few years since, 
"no woman is the wife of any husband in particular, and no man is the husband of any wo- 
man in particular ; no child is the child of any parent in particular, and no parent is the parent 
of any child in particular.'" To the entire speech of Dr. Dreckenridue, the well known Pres- 
byterian minister of Kentucky, we would specially direct the attention of the Rev. Drs. Lord, 
Blagden, and Ao.iMs, if it could be supposed that they are not already perfectly familiar with 
it, and with the universally recognized facts cf the adultery, fornication, and lust, inseparably 
connected with the slave system . 

6 



42 PROCEEDINGS. 

Evening. Edmund Quincy in the Chair. 

George W. Putnam read an original anti-slavery poem, which was re- 
ceived with considerable applause ; and was published in the Liberator of 
February 2, 1855. 

Mr, Bradley, a young colored man, of Boston, rose to speak against the 
project of Mr. Foster, for a new political party. He had long been a politi- 
cal man, and he claimed the honor of originating the Liberty Party ! He 
gave quite a complacent account of his early labors in the cause, and his 
influence over some of the anti-slavery political leaders of New York. He 
also alluded to Frederick Douglass, and spoke of him as a prodigal son, 
who had turned away from his first love, and from the friends that made liim 
all that he is. 

Rev. Mr. Hodges, of Watertown, (late of Barre,) came forward, by the 
urgent request of friends, without prc-meditation, to define his position, 
though a minister, as that of an uncompromising Abolitionist. He gave in 
his adhesion to the principles of the disunion party, and thought these prin- 
ciples the only ones that could save the country. 

Wm. Wells Brown said that he should prove to his hearers this evening, 
that he possessed one qualification of a good speaker — brevity. He stood 
on that platform to represent both the African and Anglo-Saxon races — his 
mother being an African, his father an Anglo-Saxon slaveholder. But he 
stood up free by virtue of British liberality, which purchased him from 
American Despotism. This freedom he used for a half hour, with some gen- 
eral but excellent and stirring remarks upon the subject of slavery, inter- 
spersing various exceedingly interesting facts and anecdotes from his Euro- 
pean tour, experience, and observation. 

Mr. May offered the following resolution, the vote upon which he moved 
should be taken by rising : — 

12. Resolved, That this Society would render its tribute of respect to the 
memory of the late John M. Fisk, of West Brookfield — to his early and 
disinterested choice of the anti-slavery cause, and his steadfast adherence to 
it in every trial, and notwithstanding the bitter personal animosity of oppo- 
nents ; to his excellent judgment, sound discretion, and resolute firmness in 
maintaining the justice, moral necessity, and essential Christianity of the 
anti-slavery movement; — to the spirit of noble independence which he 
manifested, in separating himself from a pro-slavery and powerful church, 
and in openly and unequivocally exposing their guilty connection with slave- 
ry ; and to the generous friendship and aid which, through a long period of 
years, he rendered to this Society, its agents, and its operations. Although 
his last years were years of suffering, from disease, yet his testimony to Iree- 
dom abode firm to the last. Unsympathizing relatives carried his lifeless 
body, for funeral services, into the church which he renounced in his life- 
time, and from which every cause dear to his soul had always been shut out, 
and there a canting priest meanly presumed upon the fact that his lips were 
closed in death, to beg the people to forgive his many offences and great pre- 
sumption in opposing the church and creating dissensions in it. But those 
of us who have known him long and well prize his memory as that of a 
true and noble spirit, whose life of courage and true devotion to the right is 
a rich legacy and a liigh encouragement to all who remain to carry on his 
labors. 

Wendell Phillips then came forward, amid much cheering, and delivered 
an eloquent speech, of which the following is a brief sketch : — 



PB0CEEDING3. 43 

Our cause, said Mr. Phillips, has received many a baptism. I do not 
know one more sacred than the memory of those who have served it faith- 
fully, and gone before us. The baptism of the dead, to whose memory fidel- 
ity to their principles is the only eulogy that we can pay them ! Most of 
you who sit before me never knew the man to whose worth we have just 
paid this feeble tribute ; but those of us who did, must feel life to have a 
stronger tie to Truth, to Justice, to Humanity, and to God, in the memory 
that we were once permitted to serve with him. A shining light — a bold 
hand — a brave heart — a generous spirit — a keen insight into the defects of 
the institutions about him — a noble devotedness to the poor — a life spent, 
not wasted, in serving the best interests of his generation ! It is the noblest 
baptism that such a cause as ours can have. And, friends, the narrower the 
cii'de becomes, let us draw the closer together — closer in earnestness and 
perseverance — life-long, unflinching, uncompromising, manly, Christian 
perseverance. And let us not forget, in the sympathy that fugitive slave 
cases stir within us — let us not forget the mass, the great, black mass, of 
the subject itself. We talked to-day and yesterday a great deal about the 
protection Massachusetts can give to the fugitive slave within her borders ; 
but we have a greater duty than that to perform, before we have begun to 
pay our debt to the slave. Slavery exists because the nation exists — be- 
cause the union exists ; Massachusetts is part of it, and will not clean her 
hand and conscience when she has made it safe for the fugitive slave to dwell 
in Boston, and tell his name. We have got to make it a fact, that every 
breeze that sweeps from the Carolinas no longer gathers up the sighs of 
broken hearts, before we can pretend to have done our duty to the slaves of 
this land. 

Mr. Phillips proceeded, in a speech somewhat over an hour in length, to 
describe the influence of the Slave Power over the politics and morals of the 
country — the legitimate and almost inevitable result of the fatal compro- 
mises made by the fathers of the Republic — and enforced the necessity of a 
dissolution of the Union, to secure the freedom of the slave. All history 
taught that slavery would not have been in existence to-day at the South, 
if it had not been for the Union. The Union saved it. Had those States 
remained colonics, Wilherforce, and Clarkson, and George Thompson, 
and the Abolitionists of 1834, would have saved us the trouble of abolishing 
slavery, for they would have abolished it. If South Carolina had carried 
out her threat of joining the British, her slavery would have gone down 
when the anti-slavery party triumphed in London ; and if she had not joined 
the British, but remained a separate colony, slavery would have been abol- 
ished, as in Mexico and South America, from tlie nature of things. It 
was a self-evident truth, almost, on the pages of history, that the formation 
of this Union preserved Slavery ; it was the only thing th^t could have 
saved it. Where was the State that had made one single step toward the 
abolition of slavery since the Union ? New York, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, Pennsylvania — all the great States — had commenced their movement 
toward emancipation as early as 1780 — some as early as 1776. They had 
gone on, but no State that had not made her commencement before 1787, 



4^ TROCEEDINGS. 

hfid ever abolished slavery. Was not that a prominent fact ? One single 
atora has been added to the chemical compoiiud, and the whole action of 
the body changes ; had they not a right to infer that that atom, ^vhicll 
"SI' as added at that specific moment, had influenced the decision of the 
question ? 

Mr. Phillips then alluded to the position taken by Mr. Sumnek, and other 
Free Soilers, that our fathers were too good ever to have framed a wicked 
Constitution. Admitting that theory to be correct, for a moment, what had 
been the result ? The first Chief Justice of the United States was John Jay, 
a man who set the example to the State of New York, by emancipating his 
own slaves — a man who might be considered almost the first AboUtionist 
among the statesmen of America. The first Chancellor of Virginia was 
Wythe — a man whom his heirs poisoned, in order to prevent him from 
making a will emancipating his slaves. The first Democratic President was 
a man who left it on record that when the slaves rose against their masters, 
there would not be an attribute of the Almighty to take the side of the 
oppressor ! Could they elect a man to be President of the United States 
to-day who should say that .-' Nominate whoever they pleased — from Maine 
to Georgia, fi'om the ocean back to Kansas — let him be as unknown as 
Franklin Pierce was before his nomination — and let him (Mr. Phillips,) 
be able to stereotype through the thirty States, the fact, that somewhere, in 
a village school-house, he had uttered that sentiment of Jefferson, and how 
great would be his chances ? 

The eloquent speaker illustrated this point at some length, and said — 
" Now, we are going to start again ; we are going to launch our ship for a 
new voyage. Ninety men out of a hundred allow that the Constitution is 
pro-slavery ; every great statesman in the country admits there arc pro- 
slavery clauses there ; you will allow that we have got a pro-slavery people 
behind it ; you Avill allow that the masses in the pulpit, in the editors' chairs, 
the masses in the political parties, the wealth of the country, the great men 
who make up what are called its leaders — all these are on the side of slavery, 
at the present moment ; the Constitution is allowedly bad, and yet you say 
there is a bright anti-slavery future before us ! We had a (/ood Constitution, 
and a ffood jjoople, and we went to wreck ; — we have got a bad Constitution, 
and a devilish i^cople, and we shall succeed ! Is there any logic in that .'' 
Patrick Henry said — ' There is but one light by which my feet are guided, 
and that is the light of experience.' By that light the abolitionist walks, in 
seeking the dissolution of the American Union." 

Mr. Phillips said, in relation to the proposition to organize a new party, 
to make Massachusetts a free State, that they should stereotype the enthusi- 
asm of the people into statutes, make public sympathy recognized as the law 
of Massachusetts, and swear every public officer of the State to stand by it. 
He wanted the laws and organizations on his side ; he did not want that 
sympathy only, which might die out to-morrow. He wanted the same pro- 
tection thrown around the fugitive slave that was afforded to the person and 
property of Abbott Lawrence — a protection that would follow the tres- 
passer to the ends of the earth. (Loud cheers.) He wanted a judiciary that 



PROCEEDINGS. 45 

should know that their first duty — if not their whole duty — was to protect 
every living man that walks on the soil of Massachusetts. (Renewed cheers.) 
One great advantage of the disunion position was, that it required no ex- 
planation. The man that held office under a Government like ours, the man 
that swore the same oath that Fkanklin Pierce does, and Benjamix Hal- 
LETT, cotild not be considered an Abolitionist, unless he explains himself. A 
man is judged by the company he keeps, and such a man had got to go 
through his daily routine with a perpetual " but " in his mouth. " I swear 
to support the Constitution — but." His outside is a lie ; God grant the 
inside be true ! He (Mr. P.) had a friend who attended the l^eace Congress 
in Paris, some years ago. He was a South Carolinian by birth, but had 
resided in New England, and had become an Abolitionist. One day, while 
in Paris, another South Carolinian approached him, and said he — " Mr. 
So-and-So, we must have one of these World's Conventions to further the 
patriarchal institution — to get the moral sense of the world on its side." 
His friend did not know how he could tell him, emphatically enough, that 
he was an Abolitionist, and so send him at a tangent to the other end of the 
moral world. He did not wish to say simply, " I am an Abolitionist " — that 
was not emphatic enough ; so he said — "Perhaps you do n't know me. I 
was born in Charleston, South Carolina, it is true ; but I board with Garri- 
son, and am engaged to be married to Prederick Douglass's sister ! " 
(Loud laughter and applause.) That didn't need any explanation ; the man 
never came to see him afterwards. That was a literal lie, but it had the 
essence of an emphatic truth in it; as Amelia Opie might say, it did not 
have the intention to deceive. It told the whole truth. That was just what 
the disunion doctrine does. If a man asked them what they thought of the 
Constitution, let them reply — '• It is a covenant with death, and an agree- 
ment with hell," and he would put on his hat and be off. He would under- 
stand them at once ; and would not trouble them with questions about the 
Free Soil party, or the Liberty party, or any other party. They had got 
through the catechism. 

This notion of dissolution, said Mr. Phillips, is not a bugbear. It will 
come in due time. If I do not see it myself, I know there will be somebody 
that will go at last to the grave of Garrison, (if it come not while he yet 
lives,) and acknowledge that he was right. I hope that God will grant, that 
when the first gun sounds that proclaims Massachusetts a sovereign State, 
Garrison's living ear will echo it, and he will be able to say — " Jubilee ! — 
Praised be God!" (Great applause.) 

The resolution offered by S. S. Foster was, on motion of Wendell Phil- 
lips, laid upon the table. 

The other resolutions, not already passed upon, were then adopted by a 
unanimous vote, and the Society adjourned, sine die. 

I^^The total cash collections, by the Finance Committee, were $-131. 



FRANCIS JACKSON, President. 
Samuel May, Jr.J \ Assistant Secretaries. 



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OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY, 1856. 



PRESIDENT. 

FRANCIS JACKSON, Boston. 

VICE PRESIDENTS. 

Andrew Robeson, New Bedford. John T. Hilton, Brighton. 

Edmund Quincy, Dedham. Thomas T. Stone, Bolton. 

Ad IN Ballou, Milford. Bourne Spoon ee, PljTnouth. 

Joshua T. Everett, Princeton. William Ashby, Newburyport. 

Effingham L. Capron, Worcester. John Bailey, Lynn. 

Jefferson Church, Springfield. James Russell Lowell, Cambridge. 

Olfver Gardner, Nantucket. Richard Clap, Dorchester. 

Henry I. Bowditch, Boston. William Whiting, Concord. 

JosiAH Henshaw, West Brookfield. Ezekiel Thatcher, Barnstable. 

Caroline Weston, Weymouth. David P. Harmon, Haverhill. 

Benjamin Snow, Jr., Fitchburg. Charles Lenox Remond, Salem. 

George Miles, Westminster. John Clement, Townsend. 

James N. Buffum, Lynn. Atkinson Stanwood, Newbur)T^)ort. 

Cyrus Peirce, Newton. Lewis Ford, Abington. 

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., Leicester. 

RECORDING SECRETARY. 

ROBERT F. WALLCUT, Boston. 

TREASURER. 

SAMUEL PHILBRICK, Brookline. 

auditor. 
EDMUND JACKSON, Boston. 

COUNSELLORS. 

William Lloyd Garrison. Edmund Quincy'. 

Wendell Phillips. Charles K. Whipple. 

Maria Weston Chapman. William I. Bowditch. 

John Rogers. John T. Sargent. 

Eliza Lee Follen. Charles F. Hovey. 

Anne W. Weston. Charles E. Hodges. 



ANNUAL STATEMENT 



OF THE 



General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 
at the Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting, January, 1856. 



During the year 1855, the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society has, to a 
greater extent than usual, divided with the American Anti-Slavery Society 
the work of cultivating the moral soil of New England, and of sowing on 
such good ground as could be found within its limits that seed- wheat of 
Truth, which, in accordance with the unchangeable laws of the Lord of the 
harvest, never fails to produce good fruits, even an hundred fold in the pres- 
ent life, and in the time to come a growth far more precious. Losing not one 
jot of hope or faith, and undeceived by the specious cries of " Lo, here ! 
and lo, there! " which continually arise in various quarters, from such as 
think to find an easier road to justice and righteousness than by repentance 
of sin, and ceasing from all union with oppressors, — this Society has stead- 
fastly pursued its way, laying the axe at the root of slavery, and exposing 
and rebuking the time-serving partizans, the sycophantic and servile editors, 
the hirelmg priests, who give their pens and voices to the advocacy or pallia- 
tion of the Heaven-defying sin of slaveholding, and who invent every con- 
ceivable apology for the commission of crimes on which God, in Nature and 
in Revelation, has set the express seal of his abhorrence and condemnation. 
The work of the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery Society, and of its associate 
Societies, can never be a popular work. When the truths it teaches shall be 
accepted by the people in reality, and its principles wrought out into living 
statutes and actual measures, its object will have been gained, its occupation 
will be gone, and it will have no longer a work and office to perform. Until 
that time, it must continue to do the thankless, yet necessary Avork, of .show- 
ing the people their transgressions and their sins — of branding the respect- 
able and wealthy criminals of the land with their just characters, and of 
facing the oppressor in high places with the plain and wholesome declaration. 
Thou art the man. The command of God, the voice of whatever in us 
is noble and divine, calls us to this work as our duUj. We have accei3ted it 
as such, and the doing of it has already been made an exceeding great re- 
ward. Better than popularitj', better than a^jplause, better than all possible 
honors, is the inward satisfaction and peace which accompany a sincere 
devotion to this work, and an honest utterance of its so needful truths. 

The work done in New England during the year past, though done in part 
under the auspices of the American Anti- Slavery Society, as already sug- 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1856. 49 

s;ested, is al?o truly tlie work of this Society. Whenever the American So- 
ciety has been able to give of its strength to the cause in New England, this 
Society has promptly spared to it such agents as might be in its employ, and 
has liberally (in proportion to its means,) contributed to sustain the work 
which the American Society Avas doing, both here and in several Western 
States besides. I shall not, therefore, speak of the anti-slavery work done 
in Massachusetts, and other New England States, the past year, as a divided 
work, but as one and the same, having one common spirit and purpose ; 
though I shall designate, generally, the several fields occupied by the two 
Societies, respectively. 

The following j'^rsons have acted as Agents of this Society during 
the past year, or of the American Anti- Slavery Society, cooperating with 
this : — 

William W. Brown, Sallie IIolley, Stephen S. Foster, Abby Kelley 
Foster, Charles C. Burleigh, Andrew T. Foss, Charles L. Remond, 
William H. Fish, Lewis Ford, Daniel S. Whitney, Nathaniel H. Whit- 
ing, and others. Messrs. Garrison, Quincy, and Phillips, have often, and 
generously, contributed their valuable aid. G. W. Putnam, of Lynn, has 
rendered good service to the cause. Rev. Rokekt Hassall, late of Mendon, 
has cooperated zealously and effectivelj' with our Agents, acting himself 
occasionally as an agent of one of our County Societies, (the Worcester 
Soirth,) and a few other Christian ministers have cheerfully and vigorously 
come to the help of our cause and our movement, among whom we gladly 
name Theodore Parker, James F. Clarke, D. A. Wasson, T. W. Higgin- 
soN, Samuel Johnson, Daniel Foster, Elnathan Davis, Charles E. 
Hodges, and others, whom it would be a pleasure to name. 

Every State in New England has been visited — some of them repeatedly 
and laboriously ; every county in Massachusetts has been visited and gone 
over with more or less thoroughness, with the exception of the two island 
counties. Not fewer than 4.50 Conventions, County meetings, and town and 
village lectures, have been held or given ; but earnest and thorough as these 
have doubtless been, how feio are they amongst the large population of New 
England, and how greatly counteracted by the sophistries and moral opiates 
which the pulpits of New England, for the most part, are constantly admin- 
istering on this subject ! It has formed a considerable part of the business 
of the General Agent, to make the needful arrangements for the Conven- 
tions, lectures, &c., just s^wken of, and to attend such of the former as he 
might be able. A large portion of his time is necessarily given to the inter- 
ests of the cause beyond the limits of New England. 

In this connection, I cannot fail to notice, and in doing so I desire to com- 
mend to the especial attention and regard of the members of this Society, 
the systematic distribution of the Tracts of the American Anti- Slavery So- 
ciety, by the hands of colporteurs, so called. Want of funds alone has pre- 
vented the Society from pushing this measure on a much more e.xtensive 
scale than as yet they have been able to do. Three colporteurs of the Amer- 
ican Anti-Slavery Society have labored in Massachusetts during the year 
past, viz : Joseph A. Howland, Caroline F. Putnam, and Daniel S. Whit- 

7 



50 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 185G. 

NEY, the last for a few weeks only. Miss Putnam lias for the most part 
accompanied Miss Holley in her lecturing tours, and has effectively com- 
mended the cause she serves wherever she has gone. Her distribution of 
the Tracts appears to have been wise, and her efforts to enlarge the Tract 
Publishing Fund have been comparatively successful. Mr. IIowland's 
labors have been of the most persevering and uncompromising sort, lie has 
travelled through town after town, (chiefly in Worcester County,) visiting 
every school-district therein, every house and shop, passing by none whom 
a word of counsel or instruction could reach, and has carried sound doctrine, 
the undiluted, unadulterated truth of God to many hearts and homes, where 
before it had been known but partially, if at all, on this subject. It is obvi- 
ous that, in doing so minute and thorough a work, many disagreeable and 
painful experiences must occur, as well as those of an opposite description. 
These close personal inquiries and conferences did not fail to reveal much of 
the sources and nature of the opposition existing in the Northern States to 
the anti-slavery cause. At some future time, it may be that Mr. Howland 
will prepare for publication in our papers, a record of his experiences as an 
anti-slavery colporteur and lecturer. Viewed only in a philosophical point, 
and ^^•ith reference to the better study and understanding of the New Eng- 
land mind, and of those sectarian and clerical, or political and self-seeking 
influences which go to shape and form it, such a record would be a valuable 
one. 

Seventeen different Tracts have been published in the Society's series, in 
addition to several not included in the regular series ; and of these, a very 
great number have been scattered during the year past. They are highly 
valued by our friends as able essays and effective appeals. Still, a want is 
felt and expressed of some additional Tracts, briefer, more practical, more 
direct in their work upon the heart and conscience ; some, also, which shall 
be specially adapted to children and young persons — interesting, adapted to 
their thoughts and feelings, and suited to make upon their young natures 
the moral impression, which, once made at that plastic time, is never 
effaced. 

The Trad Fund is nearly exhausted. It needs replenishing and enlarging. 
Our friends should remember this fund. In nearly every town in New Eng- 
land, if a moderate effort were made, by an intelligent person resident in the 
town, a handsome sum might be collected for this fund ; and many would con- 
tribute to it who would not help the cause in any other way. Our Tracts may 
safely challenge the scrutiny of the most fastidious and the most prejudiced. 
In respect of logical force, clear statement, abundant authority for their start- 
ling facts and disclosures, and moral and truly Christian character, they 
invite and will bear the closest inspection. Millions of theu* pages have gone 
over the land, doing a silent but irresistible work in behalf of justice and 
humanity ; and we ask the true, the unselfish, the real friends of the anti- 
slavery cause, to continue their support of this work, and see to it that it 
does not languish and fail through their forgetfulness and lack of timely 
aid. 

Among the other leading pubUcations of our Society (or of the parent 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1856. 51 

Society,) during the past year are, The Annual Report of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society, a Avork of the highest historical value — The Proceedings o^ 
the Meeting held to commemorate the Twentieth Anniversary of the Boston 
Pro-Slavery Mob of 1835 — and the Liberty Bell, i^ublished in connection with 
the Anti-Slavery Bazaar, of December last. These are, in an especial man- 
ner, works which anti-slavery men and women should procure, or aid in cir- 
culating through the community. They contain that truth, in rich and 
varied forms, which alone can make our people wise to their salvation as a 
people. 

If, then, this Society should seem to any to have done less the past year 
than in former years, it is mainly because it has transferred its agents and 
means to other fields, where they have appeared to be more needed, or more 
likely to advance the common cause. It has contributed, more largely than 
usual, to the treasury of the Parent Society ; and it has received in return a 
due share of that Society's efficient aid. 

It has necessarily, therefore, fallen to the General Agent's lot, to have the 
sphere of his duties extended considerably beyond the State. But he has 
not felt, at any time, that he had ceased to be the Agent of Massachusetts 
Abolitionists, knowing that they would rejoice all the more when their prin- 
ciples were extended, and a portion of their contributions employed in pro- 
claiming the gospel of freedom amongst thousands who have left their New 
England homes, or who have gathered from every quarter of the earth to 
found a nation in the far western land. 

The past has been an eventful year in the history of our cause, and the 
present one opens with like prophecy. The struggles in Kansas, to found a 
State without slavery, are matters of daily and most eventful history ; and 
every lover of freedom and true republicanism listens anxiously, yethopingly, 
for every new report from that distant territory. How will the contest be 
decided ? is a question of very deep significance. Believing it to be a con- 
test of desperation on the slaveholders ' part, we cannot but earnestly desire 
their defeat. Yet, we cannot conceal it from ourselves, that the too probable 
result will be, if Kansas be secured to a nominal freedom, that the vile Amer- 
ican spirit iif compromise will take po-ssession of its councils, control its inter- 
nal affairs, and govern its intcr.ourse with the neighboring slave States ; 
while, as a still more lamentable consequence, apathy will settle upon the 
whole Northern mind, satisfied with their seeming victory, but the end of 
which will be only to invite fresh insults and aggressions from the Southern 
despotism. No ! there is no safety, as there is no honor and no right, in our 
Union with men stealers. No temporary advantage gained, while in that 
fatal fellowship, can be of any value. There is a sure way to terminate the 
strife, to terminate the whole vast complication of crimes at once ; and that 
will come when the North takes itself out of the Union with the slavehold- 
ing and slave-trading States. That must terminate the Avrong, for the South 
is unequal to maintaining it alone. She has acknowledged this again and 
again. She is daily declaring it now, by her desperate efforts to subject the 
whole North to her power, and thus bring all Northern capital and all North- 



52 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 18-36. 

erii hibor, the ineu and the money, which are the sinews of war, completely 
under her control. 

As we sit here, and cast a backward glance on the year just gone, few 
things rise to the stern and ominous importance of the prison cell of Pass- 
more AV^iLLiAMSON. There is no mistaking or misunderstanding that case. 
Mr. "Williamson not only did what any and every man of common decency 
and humanity might do and ought to do, but he did no more than the statute 
law of the State, on whose soil he lived and acted, in that case authorized 
him to do. But the Slave-despotism of the land dwelt in Philadelphia, 
incarnate in John K. Kane ; that despotism which cares for no Constitution, 
law, or reason ; which, as Judge Kane verj^ truly remarked, " knows of no 
law" (and does not mean to know of any) "of Pennsylvania," nor of any 
other State, to deprive the Southern Slaveholder of his property in his human 
chattels. Passmoke Williamson's manliness and humanity were manifest 
treason to the Power whose servant Judge Kane burned to prove himself. 
Mr. Williamson's humiliation or incarceration — one or the other — was of 
course inevitable. The whole country looked on, Pennsylvania looked on, 
and saw her sovereignty trampled in the dust, her laws defied and trodden 
under foot, her noblest princijjles scouted and abjured. And for what .'' To 
establish a North Carolina man's right of rROPEiiTY in a tooman and her two 
sons! Away with the hypocrisy which prates of American liberty, and 
which insults the Creator and Saviour of mankind by sending missionaries 
to convert the people of Asia, Africa, and the South Sea Islands to oiu" 
religion and morality ! Unto us belong shame and confusion of face ; for, 
as a nation, and as States, and as men and women, we have sinned most 
fearfulh', and registered our own just condemnation. Passmore William- 
son's cell, like Anthony Burns's seizure and enslavement in Boston, is a too 
solid i^roof of what the Slave Power dares to attempt in our very Northern 
streets and houses, using our own brothers, and the very court-houses and 
prisons we have builded, for our own humiliation and subjection, — and 
not that only, but also Avhat it can succesafidlij attempt, and triumpliantly 
achieve. Xlr. Williamson's martyr spirit, and calm and fearless bearing, 
whilst in the power of the tyrant's minion, will be ever memorable, and 
deserves our grateful honor ; for it was that throughout which made the 
minion quail. But Slavery was triumphant in Pennsylvania, as .she has 
again and again been in Massachusetts, and it yet remains to be seen 
whether their sons will redeem their character, and " scorn to be Slaves." 
The duty of the Noi^r to demand the impeachment of Judge Kane, is 
evident. 

At least one great, hopeful sign stands forth before the nation. Two 
months has Congress been in session, unable to organize, unable to do the 
national work. Never before, at least in our day, have we seen the cheering 
sight of a Northern majority refusing to submit to a Southern minority. The 
South is aghast, and lost in astonishment ; for it was not wont so to be done 
unto them. Now we see, what we have long desired to sec, that a Northern 
" backbone " is not wholly a myth, or legend of other days. Let the result 
be what it may, this proof that the Northern spirit is arising, and that it will 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1856. 53 

yet assert its right, in the name of the living God, and wthout care for the 
idle cry of Disunion raised by her former Southern masters, — this proof, I 
say, is worth all it shall cost, ten times told. Never have Congressmen, in 
our day, earned tlieir per diem so well. 

In a brief sketch, like the present, no more can be done than to glance from 
one to another of a few prominent matters. The position of the churches 
and religious bodies of the country involves questions of such immense mag- 
nitude and importance, that, while they cannot be wholly passed over, so 
neither can they be discussed here. Let it suffice to say, that there has been, 
though a small, yet, we incline to believe, a real advance in our so-called 
churches, and a gain for freedom. This, however, will only appear by sin- 
gling out cases of individuals and small communities. Looking at the great 
masses, at the leading societies and associations, at the favorite Boards, and 
"Unions, and Conventions, and Assemblies, and these mighty glaciers do not 
even seem to move, — no little trickling rills from them betoken that the heart 
is warming. The Pro-Slavery spirit rules in them as despotically as ever. 
In proof of this, let the case of the Rev. Doctor Nehemiah Adams, of Essex 
Street Church, in this city, be considered. Somewhere about a year ago, he 
published his "South- Side View of Slavery," — that is, Slavery seen with 
the eyes and in the spirit of a Slaveholder, of course ; a just and proper title 
of the book, and leading to no deception ; so much, at least, it is due to Dr. 
Adams, to say. What happens to Dr. Adams hereupon .'' He becomes ten- 
fold the man, in the estimation of the Northern Church, or of those who control 
and manage it, that he ever was before. The American Tract Society, the 
vassal of Slavery, hasten to make him one of their Examining Committee — 
submitting their publications to his censorship and expurgation ! New 
England Orthodoxy, at its annual gathering, in this city, in May last, 
selects him before all elder, wiser, humbler, better men, to lead their devo- 
tions, and supplicate the God of heaven in their behalf ! The American 
Board ov Foreign ^Iissions, the great and powerful, the pet association of 
American evangelical religion, selects him to preach its annual sermon, and 
awards him thus its highest approbation ; and no word of rebuke breaks the 
silence of the churches ! These honors, and many minor ones, coming thick 
and fast in one short year upon Dr. Adams, connect themselves, of necessity, 
with his Pro-Slavery servility, his spiteful war upon the Anti-Slavery move- 
ment, (the great foe of a false and (/'hristless Church,) and were obviously 
meant to be his reward ! They camiot elevate him. They can and do bring 
shame and fearful guilt upon those who made such haste to be his sponsors. 
In the face of such evidence, we cannot say that the American Church has 
taken one single step, as yet, to free itself from its guilty connection with, 
and responsibility for. Slavery. 

Shall we summon another witness ? The task is unwelcome and disgust- 
ing. Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, of Dartmouth College, again comes before the 
community with a thick pamphlet in defence and justification of Slavery ; 
and this time, with more brazen face and positive assertion than before. And 
still he holds his place as the President of one of the oldest colleges in New 
England. 



54 ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1856. 

Do not these facts ampljt sustain what the Abolitionists have said of the 
churches, viz., that they are the strongholds and bulwarks of Satan's king- 
dom in this land ? — what, indeed, the more candid of their own members 
and ministers admit, that, but for them. Slavery could not live a single 
year ? Who so untrue to God and his own soul as to remain in such a 
position, in such an alliance ? May a spirit of true repentance come to the 
churches ! 

We have time to turn but for a single moment, and reach forth our hands 
to those in foreign lantls — in our own fatherland, England, Scotland, Ire- 
land — in France and in Germany, — who are so patiently and generously 
working with us, and doing so much to animate and strengthen us. Even 
at their distant post, it is no small cross which many of them take up in 
wearing the name of Abolitionist, and in working year by year in behalf of 
our cause. We give them our right hand, with our warmest greeting, and 
our most heartfelt thanks. May we all endure unto the end ! 

Nor do we need to mention the name of our brother-in-arms, our faithful 
fellow- soldier for near twenty years of this great battle for freedom, Parkeb. 
PiLLSBUiiY, now in England, in order to assure him of our remembrance and 
of our best wishes. Enfeebled in health as he has been, he has done a work 
in Great Britain of the most effective kind, and, we have reason to believe, 
in the most acceptable manner. He needs not to be assured of a most hearty 
welcome, whenever he shall again set foot upon our shores. 

Since the last Annual Meeting of this Society, the cause of humanity and 
freedom — the great common cause of free and true hearts the world over — 
has lost a faithful, devoted, and most intelligent friend, by the death of John 
Bishop Estlin, of Bristol, England. Many societies, and very many indi- 
viduals, have borne their testimony to his worth, and not a few have erected 
a memorial of him in their hearts, which shall live till the heart ceases to 
throb ; nay, whose record shall remjin, and teach those who come after us, 
and take up the weapons of this warfare when our death-stricken hands 
have dropped them. No man was ever more justly described than Mr. 
Estlin has been by those beautiful words — '< I was eyes to the blind, and 
the cause that I knew not (that cause from which the proud and the respect- 
able turn away, the cause of the poor and the oppressed) I searched out." 
At the age of nearly sixty, and after an uncommonly useful and laborious 
life, and with every reason of a prudent and usual kind for resigning himself 
to rest and quiet for the remainder of his days, he providentially became 
acquainted with the movement in this country against Slavery. It was not 
in his heart or conscience to turn a deaf ear to the imploring cry of human 
suffering and wrong. He " searched out " the matter. He took nothing for 
granted; nothing on mere hearsay evidence. He thoroughly acquainted 
himself with the cause ; and when he had done it, he thoroughly identified 
himself with its friends. To the end of his life, he stood with them, worked 
with them, and gave his best counsels, his best efforts, and warmest prayers 
for the success of the cause. To the last hour of his life, every emotion and 
thought of his did truly utter itself for freedom. Thus he made his old 
age beautiful, full of wise instruction, rich iu encouragement. Seldom can 



ANNUAL STATEMENT, 1856. 55 

our cause lose a truer friend ; yet, only in a very narrow sense lost ; for to 
have had such, a friend is itself a great and unfading treasure. With thanks 
to God for his life, for his memory, for his fellowship, may we he encouraged 
by them all to a more dihgent and entire consecration of ourselves to the 
holy cause of Human Freedom ! 

SAMUEL MAY, Jr., 

General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery Society, 1856. 

The twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti- Slavery- 
Society was held at Williams Hall, in Boston, on Thursday and Friday, 
January 24th and 25th. 

The meeting was called to order by the President, Francis Jackson, at 
10 1-2 o'clock. 

The President stated that the Committee of Arrangements had prepared 
a list of Committees, &c., which, at their request, he would read to the So- 
ciety, for their ajjproval, amendment, or rejectioli : — 

Committee on Business — Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 
Maria Weston Chapman, J. B. Swasey, Charles C. Burleigh, Andrew 
T. Foss, Stephen S. Foster, Wm. Wells Brown, Abby Kelley Foster. 

Assistant Secretaries — Samuel May, Jr., Boston ; Joseph A. Howland, 
Worcester. 

Cotnmittee on Finance — Lewis Ford, Charles B. McIntire, Elbkidge 
Sprague, Briggs Arnold, Cornelius Wellington, Sallie Holley, 
Darius M. Allen. 

Committee to Nominate Officers for the Ensuing Yeai Edmund Quincy, 

Dedham ; Charles L. Remond, Salem ; William Ashby, Newburyport ; 
Altan Howes, Barnstable ; Charles F. Hovey, Boston ; John Bailey, 
Lynn; Alvan Ward, Ashbumham; Moses Smith, Holden ; Henry W. 
Carter, Athol ; Mehitable Haskell, Gloucester ; Ansel H. Harlow, 
Boston ; Joseph Merrill, Danversport ; Samuel Barrett, Concord. 

The foregoing were unanimously accepted, and chosen officers of the 
annual meeting. 

Opportunity for prayer, vocal or silent, was then given. 

Samuel Philbrick, Treasurer of the Society, presented his Annual Report. 
It showed a total amount of receipts into the treasury, during the year, of 
$9,621.57. Disbursements, $9,252.30. Balance in treasury, 1st January, 
$369.27. The Report was accompanied by the certificate of the Auditor, 
Edmund Jackson, that the account is correct and properly vouched. 

Wendell Phillips suggested a change in the manner of acknowledging 
the receipt of the money refunded by the Boston and Worcester Railroad, 
which was adopted by the Treasurer. 

Voted, unanimously. That the Treasurer's Report be accepted and printed. 

Samuel May, Jr., the General Agent of the Society, read his Annual 
Statement of Operations during the year past. 



PROCEEDINGS. 57 

Mr. Garrison, from the Committee on Business, reported the three fol- 
lowing resolutions : — 

1. Resolved, That as, in apostolic times, it was necessary that judgment 
should " begin at the house of God " ; so, the work of repentance for the sin 
of slavery must begin on our own soil, at our own doors, in our own breasts, 
and, imtil Massachusetts be a free State in principle and action, it is not for 
her to reproach or rebuke any Southern State for holding slaves, or for seek- 
ing to perpetuate her slave system. 

2. Resolved, That to be o{)posed to slavery in the abstract, and at the 
same time to support it in practice, is to confess with the lips that worship 
is to be paid only to the living God, while bowing down to an idol; and is 
indicative of a very low moral condition. 

3. Rcsolced, That if slavery be " the sum of all villainies," then its sup- 
porters and abettors are to be more boldly arraigned, and more severely con- 
demned, than if they were giving their aid and countenance to any other 
wrong or outrage ; and, instead of qualifj-ing our impeachment or softening 
our reproof of slaveholders and their apologists, we are morally bound all 
the more to " cry aloud, and spare not." 

Stepuen S. Foster took the platform, and remarked upon the general state 
of the cause and of our movement in particular. He stated his belief, based 
on his own experience and observation, that our numbers had diminished, 
and we were weaker in strength than ten years ago ; and assigned as a reason, 
that although people were in the main convinced of the truth of our princi- 
ples, yet they deemed them impracticable. Tlie people must vote ; they are 
unwilling to adopt practically a iDrinciple that forbids their voting. AVehave 
called on the people to leave their pro-slavery churches and pro-slavery par- 
ties, but have provided no church for them to go into, no political organiza- 
tion for them to act with ; and those whom we had heretofore converted have 
returned to political action again, and in some cases, to fellowship their old 
religious associations again. 

To meet this difficulty, Mr. Foster proposed the organization of disunion 
churches and a disunion pohtical party, in which to take up the sympathies 
of the people, already tending in the right direction, and turn them to prac- 
tical account. The people will vote, they must vote ; then we must provide 
ways for them to vote without sacrifice of principle, and thereby make their 
action as effective as possible. And although he, as a non-resistant, could 
not become a voter, still he could direct others how to act in harmony with 
their own principles, and yet directly to the benefit of the anti-slavery cause. 

Mr. Garrison followed, in review of Mr. Foster's positions, that our dis- 
tinctive movement was making no progress. He thought that our cause 
never stood better than to-day ; that it progressed regularly and rapidly, and 
he could not but be hopeful, especially in view of the fact, that for two 
months the proud waves of the Slave Power had beat in vain upon the 
Banks of Massachusetts. We have at last an opportunity of beholding a 
temporary bar put in the way of the triumphant march of the Slave Power. 
This indicates progress, and gives ground for hope and encouragement. And 
then, as to our disunion platform, when we first broached the principle, it 
was almost treason to speak of it — the idea would on no account be tolerat- 
ed ; but now it is everywhere discussed, and that, too, with safety and con- 



58 PROCEEDINGS. 

sideration. Our work is, to convert and change the public sentiment, and 
that, too, not so much by making individual converts, as by educating and 
bringing up the public, step by step. Our business is to influence and dii'ect, 
rather than to organize churches or political parties. And with this view, 
he thought we were doing much, very much. Everything indicates progress 
and encourages hojie. 

S. S. Foster again took the floor, in a more full exposition of Avhat he 
deemed the necessary work for abolitionists now to be engaged in. 

Richard Clap, of Dorchester, hoped that due credit would be given to the 
Free Soil or Republican party, while for himself he expressed his full faith 
in, and adherence to, the great principle of " No Union with. Slaveholders." 

Various notices were given, and the Society adjourned to quarter to 3 
o'clock. 

Afternoon. The President in the chair. 

Mr. Garrison, from the Committee on Business, reported the following 
additional resolutions : — 

4. Resolved, That the statements commonly made by the clergy, (to 
excuse the slaveholding of the South, or their own inaction in regard to it, 
or both,) that "slavery is a great Providential arrangement" — that '*the 
hand of God is in it" — that '* God, in his providence, sent the Africans to 
this country that they might receive the light of the Gospel," &c &c., are 
not only entirely unavailing as a defence, cither of themselves or others, but 
are really more irreverent to God than that thoughtless cursing and swearing 
of vulgar persons which they invariably and justly reprove. 

5. Resolved, That there can be no greater delusion than the belief that 
the Gospel is preached at the South, eitlier to slaves or slaveholders. 

6. Resolved, That one lesson which we may appropriately draw from the 
long continuance of slavery is to mark the corruption of that Church which, 
North as well as South, is its chief bulwark ; and to notice whether the per- 
versions of reason, fact and Scripture which the clergy use in its support, be 
not also used to mislead their readers in their professional capacity. 

7. Resolved, That the prominent indications of sympathy and good fel- 
lowship which have been bestowed \ipon the Rev. Nehemiah Ada.ms, by the 
representatives of the popular religion, since the publication of his " South- 
Side View of Slavery, namely — 

His being chosen on the Examining Committee of the American Tract 
Society — and to preach the Annual Sermon before the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions — and to preside, on anniversary week, 
at the opening of the Union praycr-raceting in Winter Street Church — and 
to preach the sermon at an installation at Providence, R. I. — and to dedi- 
cate, by prayer, the new rooms of the Mercantile Library Association, in 
Boston — show the corrupt state of that popular religion, and the urgent 
necessity of teaching, instead of it, a pure and genuine Christianity. 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke addressed the meeting in a speech of great 
point and eloquence. He contrasted the ease of anti-slavery profession at 
the North with the difficulty of sustaining anti-slavery principles at the 
South. The lack of real, abiding, conscientious principle, even among Mas- 
sachusetts men, who, though loud-mouthed cabolitionists here, were too often 
the strongest slaveholders when their business called them South, was point- 
ed out. 



PROCEEDINGS. 69 

He defended the Personal Liberty Bill of our last Legislature, and 
showed that those who denounced that as treason were themselves the real 
traitors. 

In showing the thankless task of reformers, he illustrated his remarks by 
the story of some Englishmen who found an emaciated Hindoo left to die on 
the banks of the sacred Ganges, whom they revived and brought to life only 
to receive his daily curses for restoring him, and keeping him out of his 
Hindoo heaven. 

He said we often heard of idolatry, of people who worshipped wood and 
stone. People here condemn that, while they worship and idolize other 
things, the Constitution and Union, as though no other could be formed so 
good. People here worship men. In all the shop windows, aU the banks 
and insurance offices, glares at you, with heavy brow, sunken cheek, and 
gloomy expression, the image of Daniel Webster, the idol worshipped in 
Boston. Mr. C. closed with an appeal to all to stand fast, although few or 
almost alone. God was with the right. 

Mr. Garrison said that this was the meeting of the Massachusetts Anti- 
Slavery Society ; that our work was in Massachusetts, and was two-fold, 
religious and political — to make men consistent and honest in all their rela- 
tions. Now, people violate their own principles to sustain their church and 
party. 

Our work is personal, because slavery incarnates itself in persons, and we 
must deal with the system in its manifestation through the individual. We 
rebuked Daniel Webster through his life, and it was wise and philosophi- 
cal to do so. And now it may be our duty to devote our energies to making 
Boston too hot to hold Neh^miah Adams, to break down Essex Street Church. 
Our work is with the church members of Massachusetts. All churches which 
have a discipline, and hold their members to a professed Christian standard, 
and are still pro- slavery, should be forsaken by all true abolitionists. This 
]Toint Mr. Garrison enforced at length by illustrations, drawn from the prac- 
tice of the churches in their discipline. 

He then showed the inconsistency of professed aboHtionists taking the oath 
to the Constitution of the United States, which pledges them to the protec- 
tion and defence of slavery. This point was elucidated and illustrated with 
great clearness and force ; and the absurdity of those who profess a belief in 
the anti-slavery character of the Constitution acting in harmony with a pro- 
slavery government was also very distinctly shown. And then the Jesuitism 
of those who, professing disunion principles, are seduced by some side issue 
to cast their votes for that special object, was held up to view. 

Mr. Garriso.v, in reply to S. S, Foster, gave his theory of the duty of 
abolitionists as to the manner of bringing Massachusetts out of its govern- 
mental connection with slavery. 

S. S. Foster then followed at length in review of Mr. Garrison, and in 
favor of a new political organization, 

J, B. Innis replied to Mr. Foster in defence of the Free Soil party and its 
platform. 

The Society adopted the following resolution : — 



60 PROCEEDINGS. 

Resolved, That in order to defray the expenses of this Annual Meeting, 
the members of the Society and friends of the cause present be requested to 
contribute each the sum of one dollar, or such other sum, whether more or 
less, as they may be able, to the Finance Committee. 

The Finance Committee proceeded to the discharge of their duty, in ac- 
cordance with the Resolution. 

Mr. Foster asked Mr. Garrison how he would proceed in the work of 
getting out of this Union ; — what steps should be taken in the matter. 

Mr. Garrison replied, cease to support the Union and the Government, 
cease to vote under it, cease to swear allegiance to it, and do all you can to 
excite for it the moral abhorrence it deserves. Then, when the popular mind 
is ready, they will summon a Convention to form a new Government. And 
when it meets, said Mr. G., I hope to be there, and do all I can to form a 
new and a good government ; and if they put sin into it, then I will be off, 
and call again for disunion. 

Mr. FosTKR enlarged upon the necessity of laying before the people some 
definite method of action. He repudiated as worthless all present methods. 
He regarded the Republican party, and all their members, Charles Sumner 
included, as in league with the slaveholders against the slaves, pledged by 
the Constitution to keep the compromises with slavery. 

Charles C. Burleigh replied to Mr. Foster. He objected to Mr. Fos- 
ter's position that the Republican party was the greatest hindrance to the 
overthrow of slavery. He also dissented from Mr. Foster's position that 
slavery is weakened by its acquisition of neAV territory, and its spreading its 
victims over a wider surface. 
Adjourned to 7 o'clock. 



Evening. Edmund Quincy, a Vice President in the Chair. 

A quartette club of young volunteers sang the " Rock of Liberty." 

J. B. Swasey, Esq., of Newburyport, opened the discussion of the evening 
session by saj-ing that he too had felt the discouragement expressed by Mr. 
Foster, while he looked only to direct results ; but as he had faith in God, 
in the success and triumph of truth and groat principles, he could but believe 
that the old Saxon spirit, the spirit of the Puritans, would in the result tri- 
umph successfully over the dark power of slaverj^ in this land. 

He then went on to review Mr. Foster's positions in reference to political 
action, illustrating m part, by reference to Jesus Christ, who, he said, never 
attempted to make a platform, or organization, or even a plan, but addressed 
himself to, and sought to instruct and elevate, the individual conscience. 

He illustrated the progress of the cause by his own experience. A few 
months ago, he was entirely at variance with this platform ; but being called, 
in order to qualify himself for the office of Justice of the Peace, to take an 
oath to support the Constitutions of Massachusetts and of the United States, he 
set himself about a careful study of those documents, and soon came to the 
conclusion that, as an honest man and true friend of freedom, he could do no 
such thing. 



PROCEEDINGS. 61 

Wendell Phillips was greeted, as he came to the platform, by the cheers 
of the audience. He said that many of Mi^ Foster's positions were right ; 
but his feeling of hopelessness because no more converts were made was a 
short-sighted one. Our duty was not to make disunionists, neither was our 
success to be estimated by the numbers of our men ; but we were to be the 
leaven that should leaven the whole lump. 

As to a disunion party, he felt with Mr. Foster that that was to be the 
course, but the time was not yet. We have not sufficient material of Avhich 
to construct such a party, and it would be a waste of our strength to stop 
now to organize a party in order to bo counted. Our party is yet too small 
to be counted, and should we try, some side issue would draw them off, so 
that we could not count them at all. 

But we were making advances, for Mr. Banks, though not an Abolitionist, 
is to-day the block that stops the wheels of government, so that even Caleb 
Gushing, with his hands full of money and his heart full of lies, could not 
buy up his necessary ten men, that he has heretofore boasted he could 
always buy. It is an indication of progress that Charles Sumner, a young 
democratic lawyer, with no party friends or great fame, now fills the seat of 
Daniel Webster ; and that the seat of Edward Everett, the pet scholar 
of Boston, is now filled by the " Natick Cobbler," — one who has earned his 
seat there by nobler services than nine-tenths of those who sit about him. 
That is progress. 

Another objection to a political organization is, that it must be too broad. 
He should want to put in an elective judiciary, &c., and there would be too 
many elements to put into the crucible to make a distinct political issue upon. 

Mr. Phillips continued, in one of his happiest efforts, in a strain of great 
beauty and eloquence, that could be equalled only by himself, and to which 
no mere sketch could do justice ; closing with the remark that the disunion 
party Avould, as a result, a necessity, crest up on the rising wave of time. 

Mr. Garrison said that he knew of nothing by which to test anti-slavery 
but the slave, and he started in that cause resolved to know nothing but the 
slave. He did not then expect to leave his political party, his religious de- 
nomination, or the government ; but he was bound to stand by the slave, 
and let everything that stood in the way, that was pro-slavery, go by the 
board. Our position must necessarily be an isolated one. We could not 
attract noisy, excited, spasmodic meetings, as the politicians do, but we must 
keep straight forward, unswerving, and our work is always before us. If 
we would concede something to the Church, for instance, that slaveholding 
can, under some circumstances, be right, or that a slaveholder can possibly 
be a Christian, or make any other concession, however small, we should have 
our character given back to us, and should afterAvards stand well with the 
public. But no, we must make no concession, but stand on our own ground, 
if we stand alone. 

He was sorry to differ from any friends of the cause — was glad to tliink 
as well as he could of the Republicans, but must, nevertheless, criticise 
them. Their Personal Liberty Bill, in this State, acknowledges the right of 
the slaveholder to reclaim his human '♦property," but he must prove his 



62 PROCEEDINGS. 

claim to a jury. He objected to them on their ovm single paltry issue of 
Free Soil ; they treated the quffstfon of freedom in the Territories in the 
same manner as they did the question of banking, or anything else, meaning 
to carry their point by vote, or, if overcome, to submit. And if they should 
keep Kansas out, because of a slave Constitution, the people of the Territory 
could try a free Constitution, and then, being voted in, they could alter it to 
a slave Constitution, for the Republicans acknowledge the right of a sov- 
ereign State to settle the question of freedom or slavery for itseK. Their 
opposition to slavery is technical, and not real. 

Mr. Garrison then went on to criticise the various other positions and 
avowals of the Republicans and their advocates ; summing up -with objecting 
to their love of the Union, which he feared would induce them to let the 
slave slide, to save the Union. He then discussed the disunion question in 
his own able and masterly manner. A running discussion ensued on Free 
Soil positions, &c., which continued half an hour, and was closed by S. S. 
Foster. 

The Quartette Club sang a song, and the Society adjourned to Friday 
morning, 10 o'clock. 



FRIDAY. 

The Society re-assembled at Williams Hall, the President, Francis Jack- 
son, in the chair. 

The resolutions before the Society were read by the Secretary. 

Mr. Garrison read a paragraph from a Mobile (Alabama) paper, showing 
the alarm with which the advance of anti-slavery at the North strikes South- 
em minds. 

Andrew T. Foss said that he agreed with Mr. Foster, and Mr. Phillips, 
that we should at this meeting discuss practical measures, rather than fun- 
damental principles. He did not quite agree with Mr. Foster, that our prin- 
ciples had been accepted by the community ; he felt that our principles had 
but little practical effect upon community. The church and the government 
deny that slavery is a crime, and the people act accordingly. They need 
our true principles preached continually ; they have not yet received the full 
benefit and influence of them. Mr. Foss very strikingly illustrated these 
positions. 

Mr. Foss accounted for the smallness of our numbers, and the apparent 
want of interest in our cause, and commented on Mr. Foster's proposed rem- 
edies with a humorous sarcasm that kept the audience in a pleasant mood, 
while the success of the criticism seemed to carry conviction to all. 

S. S. Foster took the platform in further exposition of his propositions, 
and in condemnation of the Free Soil party and of the countenance and sup- 
port which our platform gives to that party, in acknowledging that it is doing 
an anti-slavery work of any kind, and that its success is an indication of 
anti-slavery progress. At the request of Mr. GarRison, he gave more in 
detail his views of the organization of a new political party. He closed by 



PllOCEEDINQS. 63 

saying, that he felt with Mr. Phillips, that our work was the elevation of 
the public sentiment, the education of the people. There aU our strength 
lies, and all our work. 

Charles C. Burleigh said he thought that Mr. Foster misapprehended 
the position of the Free Soil party, and also our relation to that party. 
Friend Foster's positions would necessarily carry the idea that the slave- 
holding power yvas the greatest anti-slavery instrumentality in the country, 
which he could not believe or admit. Mr. Burleigh then went on, with his 
unrivalled power of reasoning, to review Mr: Foster's argument, and to 
exhibit his own views of the theory, philosophy and efficacy of our move- 
ment. 

J. B. SwASEY briefly reviewed Mr. Foster's positions, saying that he 
thought there was some truth in what Mr. F. had said, but he felt that it 
was exaggerated by him. He especially thought that Mr. F. had stated 
much too strongly the readiness of people to join the new party he proposes. 
The men to join such a party, Mr. Swasey thought, do not exist. In regard 
to numbers, we should be just where we now are ; the new party would be 
made up of the old Disunionists, and no others. 

Adjourned at 1 o'clock, to meet at 2 1-4. 

Afternoon. Francis Jackson in the Chair'. 

Mr. Fowler, of Cambridge, opened the discussions of the afternoon session 
with a speech in which he showed that all reforms were progressive, and 
should never expect to lay a permanent platform or an abiding Constitution ; 
for the very next step onward led ofl" and away from it. The Constitution of 
yesterday would become too narrow for to-day. He went on to show there- 
from that the church constitution and the political constitution, framed in 
the past, must of necessity be too pro-slavery and narrow for to-day. He 
adverted to his own experience. He had been silenced as a preacher, be- 
cause he desired to be true to God and humanity, rather than faithful to 
the creed or constitution of the church ; whUe his classmates, who declared 
that they would preach the creed because it would pay, were allowed to 
remain in good standing. 

Mr. Garrison, from the Committee on Business, reported the following 
resolutions : — 

8. Resolved, That if the Legislature of Massachusetts, at its presAt ses- 
sion, shall repeal or essentially modify the Personal Liberty BiU, (except to 
make it unlawful to seize any man as a Slave on oiu- soil,) at the insolent 
dictation of the Slave Power, or the more intolerable selfishness and cow- 
ardice of Governor Gardneu, it will be an act of such abject abasement and 
treachery to the cause of Freedom as shall consign to lasting infamy every 
Senator and everj' Representative voting for it. 

9. Resolved, nevertheless. That to put any man on trial before any com- 
missioner or jury, in this Commonwealth, or anywhere on the earth, to 
determine the issue whether he is the property of another man, is an enor- 
mity to be scouted in every communitj^ whether civilized or savage ; that, 
in so lar as such a triaf is recognized and provided for by the Personal Liberty 
Bill of Massachusetts, that Bill (however it may conflict with the Fugitive 



64 PROCEEDINGS. 

Slave Law of 1850,) is deplorably defective ; and, therefore, as Massachusetts 
can go no further under the present national compact, and in order to put a 
perpetual end to Slave-catching on her soil, she is morally bound, by the 
highest considerations of justice and humanity, to secede from the Union in 
which she cannot ]irotect the Fugitive Slave, except by perfidy or rebellion. 

10. Resoloed, That we welcome this annual occasion once more unitedly 
to express, what individually we ever so warmly cherish, our deep and grate- 
ful sense of obligation to the friends of our cause in every city and town in 
the British Empire from whence their sympathy and aid have so constantly 
been extended to us ; and among their numerous ranks, it befits this occasion 
especially to name our honored friends, the Webks, the Allens, and the 
Haugutons, of Dublin; the Patons and the Nichols, of Glasgow ; with all 
who so essentially aided our earlier struggle by the voice of George Thomp- 
son ; the WiGHAMS, of Edinburgh ; the Aiimisteads and Luptons, of Leeds ; 
the name of Estlin, Avith the Akmstuongs, the Tribes, and the Carpenters, 
of Bristol; the Steinthals, the Chapmans, and the Michhls, of the West of 
England ; the Sturges, the Reids, and the Massies, of London. And 
Avhcther this aid, for which we so cordially thank them, has reached us in 
the form of testimony against Slavery, generous friendship and hospitality 
towards ourselves and our representatives as the advocates of Freedom, or 
pecuniary help in carrying on our cause, we desire most emphatically to 
assure them of its great efficacy in regeneratmg public opinion, (the spruig of 
all action in the United States,) and in furnishing our own hearts with the 
strongest additional motive never to be found wanting to the sacred duty in 
which Ave are so nobly seconded. 

11. Resolved, That, since the briefest historical retrospect of the last 
quarter of a centuiy Avould be imperfect without an expression of feeling, in 
view of one great and holy life which the world has there seen so unreserv- 
edly and strenuously devoted to the welfare of mankind ; and since that 
whole noble life, now approaching the term that gives freedom to speak the 
whole truth concerning it, has a peculiar claim on our hearts, we feel privi- 
leged by our cause to express to Hakriet Martineau, while yet tliere is time, 
our deep, affectionate, and reverential gratitude for the benefit of her labors, 
the honor of her friendship, and the sublime joy of her example. 

Kev. C. E. Hodges, of Watertown, said that, in his search for truth, he 
had felt the utter lack of trust in truth that pervaded the Avhole community. 
He had looked among politicians in vain — there Avas no truth among them ; 
to the church — there was no faith there; and in the Avhole communitA', 
there were but feAV who had any faith or trust m truth. In the Anti-.Slavery 
movement, he had found more faith in truth and righteousness than any- 
where else — more real faith and hope ; and here he had found that stead- 
fastness of purpose and principle that he found noAvhere else. It Avas, there- 
fore, Avith sorrow and discouragement that he had heard the remarks made 
by il?! Foster, of a desponding character. This, he thought, indicated an 
undue impatience. We must Avait patiently, and Avith trust and hope. 

Mr. Garrison then read from the Daily Journal a notice of our yesterday's 
meetmg, and commented on the readiness of that paper to report any discour- 
aging or desponding remark, Avhile it omitted to report those remarks of all 
the other speakers, Avhich Avere filled Avith the spirit of hope and joy at 
our clear and undeniable progress. 

He then proceeded to speak of the various stages of progress through 
•which every truth-loving mind must needs go. We jmay be in a false posi- 
tion to-day, honestly and sincerely, and be entirely praiseworthy for our 



PROCEEDINGS. 65 

sincerity and trntlifulness. But our next step onward would put us in a 
truer and better position — and so on. Let us, therefore, give honor to those 
who are truthfully, honestly seeking truth and right, even though they may 
not be in a true and right position. Mr. G. then went on to show at length 
the impropriety and evil of political organization and action on our part. 

J. B. Innis, of Salem, made a few remarks in defence of the Anti-Slavery 
character of the United States Constitution. 

Edmund Quincy, in behalf of the Nominating Committee, reported a list 
of Officers of the Society for the ensuing year. [See List of Officers, p. 47.] 

The report of the Committee was unanimously accepted, and the persons 
therein named duly elected officers for the current year. 

Mr. Quincy, in making his report, also read the following letter : — 

New York, January 18, 1856. 
Francis Jackson, Esq., President of the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society, Boston, 

Deak Sir, — Having taken up my residence in this city, it becomes my 
duty to resign my office as one of the " Board of Managers " of your Society. 
Thanking the friends for the honor so long conferred upon me, offering you 
and our associates my best wishes for the success of our common cause, and 
assuring you and them of my hearty cooperation in all just measures to 
brhig Slavery to a perpetual end, 

I am, my dear Sir, ever 

Yours faithfully, 

C. BRAMHALL. 

Voted, That the thanks of this Society be given to Cornelius Bramhall, 
Esq., for his long and faithful services as an Officer of this Society. 

Voted, That the Corresjionding Secretary communicate the vote of thanks 
to Mr. Bramhall. 

Adjourned to 7 o'clock, P. M. 



Evening. Edmund Quincy in the chair. 

The Quartette Club again sang the "Rock of Freedom." 

The Society was then addressed by J. B. Swasey, Stephen S. Foster, 
William Wells Brown, and Miss Frances E. Watkins, a young colored 
woman, of Baltiinoic, free born, yet a sufferer from the cruel prejudices of 
ignorant and narrow-minded white persons, addressed the meeting in a simple 
but touching manner. Her brief remarks were very warmly applauded. 

Mr. Garrison reported the following resolutions : — 

12. Resolved, That this Society would take the opportunity of its annual 
meeting, to record its tribute of sincere respect for tlie memory of the late 
John Bishop Estiin, whose death at Bristol, England, in June last, has 
deprived the Anti-Slavery cause, the world over, of the presence of a most 
intelligent and generous friend, whose counsels were full of wisdom, whose 
labors were constant and untiring, and whose heart always warmed to the 
great principles of freedom and humanity which this Society maintains. 
Grateful for his friendship, his fellowship, and invaluable aid, deeply respect- 
ing his lofty and disinterested character, and with sincere sympathy for her, 

9 



66 , PKOCEEDINGS. 

who, of his family, alone survives him, and who so lai-gely shares his spii-i^ 
we shall cherish his memory as one of the rich treasures wliich the cause of 
freedom has bestowed upon us. 

13. Resolved, That in the recent demise of our venerated friend and 
unswerving coadjutor, William II. Ashurst, Esq., of London, the cause of 
emancipation, in America, and the cause of liberty throughout the world, 
have met with a great bereavement ; for his hospitable home was ever open 
alike to the advocates of the American Slave and the noble refugees from the 
despotism of Euroj^e ; and with his pen and purse, he was never weary in 
giving his brave testimony and his efficient aid to every movement on British 
soil for the freedom and elevation of the suffering classes, and to every strug- 
gle in other lands to liberate the victims of an oversliadowing despotism. 

14. Resolved, That we again give the right hand of brotherly regard to 
our clear-sighted and fearless friend and felloAv-worker, Parker Pillsbury, 
now in England ; that we rejoice in his labors and in his success, in the 
many friendships he has made for our cause and not less for liimself, and in 
the faithful testimonies he has borne against every kind of pro-slavery, and 
against the lukcwarmness and apathy of many of the professed friends of 
the slave. FuUy convinced of the radical and thorough work he has done 
in Great Britain in behalf of genuine anti-slavery, we heartily bid him God- 
speed ; and whenever improved health shall warrant his return to our shores, 
we pledge him our heartiest welcome. 

15. Resolved, That a Constitution which provides for a Slave representa- 
tion and a Slave oligarchy in Congress — which legalizes Slave-hunting and 
Slave-catching on every inch of American soil — and which pledges the mili- 
tary and naval power of the country to keep four millions of chattel Slaves 
in their chains — is to be trodden under foot, and pronounced accursed, how- 
ever unexceptionable or valuable may be some of its provisions. 

16. Resolved, That the one great issue before the country is, THE DIS- 
SOLUTION OF THE UNION — in comparison with which all other 
issues -with the Slave Power are as dust in the balance ; therefore, we will 
give ourselves to the work of annulling this " covenant with death," as essen- 
tial to our own innocency, and the speedy and everlasting overthrow of the 
Slave system. 

17. Resolved, That in the invitation extended, by a professedly Anti- 
Slavery committee, to that brazen and shameless advocate of man-stealing, 
Senator Robert Toomiss, of Georgia, to come to Boston to defend the 
nefarious practices of the South, after his insulting boast that he would yet 
marshal his Slaves around the base of Bunker Hill Monument, and defy 
Massachusetts to liberate one of them ; and in his reputable appearance, last 
eveniag, in the Tremont Temple, boldly to do his worst against the sacred 
rights of man, and to defend " the sum of all villainies," the world is pre- 
sented vdth. the chmax of effrontery, on the one hand, and of gratuitous folly 
on the other ; and it clearly indicates how low is the moral condition of the 
metropolis of the Commonwealth respecting the most revolting system of 
oppression kno-wni in the annals of time. 

Wendell Phillips then addressed the meeting. 

[N. B. As a fuU report of tliis speech, and others made this evening, was 
taken in short-hand, and has appeared elsewhere, no further sketch is here 
attempted.] i 

The resolutions before the Society were unanimously adopted. 

The following resolution, offered by Wendell Phillips, from the Busi- 
ness Committee, was also unanimously adopted : — 

18. Resolved, That this Society rejoices ia the abolition of the sepaiate 
colored schools, in the City of Boston, as the triumph of law and justice over 



PROCEEDINGS. 67 

the pride of caste and wealth ; and recognizes in it the marked advance of 
the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the State. 

I^* The amount received by the Finance Committee at this Annual 
Meeting, with that taken at the door for entrance at evening meetings, was 
$380.00. Amount pledged and payable during the year, $867.75. 

Adjourned, sine die. 

FRANCIS JACKSON, President. 

Samuel Mat, Jk., ) „ . ^ . ,, . 

r A TT ? Secretaries of the Meeting. 

Joseph A. Howland, ) 



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ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS. 

The Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery So^jiety 
have issued the following Tracts, for gratuitous distribution. 

The United States Constitution Examined. 

White Slavery in the United States. 

Colonization. By Rev. 0. B. Frotiiinguam. 

Does Slavery Christianize the Negro ? By Rev. T. W. 

HiGGlNSON. 

The Inter-State Slave Trade. By John G. Palfrey. 
The "Huin " of Jamaica. By Riciiaud HiLDRETri. 
Revolution the only Remedy for Slavery. 
To Mothers in the Free States. By Mrs. E. L. Follen. 
Injluence of Slavery upon the White Population. By a 

Lady. 
Slavery and the North. By Cuakles C. Burleigh. 
Disunion our Wisdom and our Duty, By Rev. Charles 

E. Hodges. 
Anti-Slavery Hymns and Songs. By Mrs. E. L. Follen. 
The Two Altars; or, Two Pictures in One. By* Mrs. 

Harriet B. Stowe. 
'■'■How can I Help to Abolish Slavery V^ or, Counsels to 

the Newly Converted. By Maria W. Chapman. 
What have we, as Individuals, to do with Slavery ? By 

Susan C. Cabot. 
The American Tract Society, and its Policy of Suppression 

and Silence. Being the Unanimous Remonstrance of the 

Fourth Congregational Society, Hartford, Conn. 
" 17. The God of the Bible against Slavery. By Rev. Charles 

Beecher. 



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Applications for the above Tracts, for gratuitous distribution, 
should be made to Samuel May, Jr., 21 Cornhill, Boston; to the 
Anti-Slaa'ery Offices, 138 Nassau Street, New York, and 31 North 
Fifth Street, Philadelphia; to Joel McMillan, Salem, Columbiana 
County, Ohio ; or to Jacob Walton, Jr., Adrian, Michigan. 

1^" All donations for the Tract Fund, or for the circulation of any 
particular Tract of the above series, should be sent to Francis Jack- 
son, Treasurer of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 21 Cornhill, 
Boston. 



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